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THE 



Life and Sermons 



OF 



Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage 



BY 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, LL. D. 

Author of " Life and Sermons of Henry Ward Beecher," " Life of 
Charles Spurgeon," "Life of D. L. Moody," Etc. 



ILLUSTRATED. 



CHICAGO 

M. A. DONOHUE & CO. 

407-429 Dearborn Street 



M. 



THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Received 

JUN. 21 1902 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 



IdASS 0^ XXc. No. 

3 14- 5- 0 <\ 
COPY B. 



Copyright 1902 

A. DONOHUE & CO, 



M. Ai DONOHUE A CO., PRINTERS AND BINDERS, CHICAGO. 



AUTHOR'S PEEFACE. 



The following discourses were stenographically reported, 
and by me revised for publication, expressly for the only 
authorized publishers. T. DeWitt Talmage. 



PUBLISHER'S PREFACE 



In issuing this collection from our press we do it in the 
profound conviction that the Christian community and the 
great American Public in general will appreciate these soul-stir* 
ring discourses on the temptations and rices of city life, by Dr. 
Talmage as seen by him in his midnight explorations in the 
haunts of vice of New York City, with his exposure of the traps 
and pitfalls that tempt our youth from tlie path of rectitude. 
They are written in his strongest descriptive powers, sparkling 
with graceful images and illustrative anecdotes ; terrible in their 
earnestness ; uncompromising in denunciation of sin and wicked- 
ness among the high or low, sparing neither rich nor poor ; and 
are Dr. Talmage's best efforts in his earnest, aggressive warfare 
against the foes of society, every page burning with eloquent en- 
treaty for a better, purer life, and are of intense, soul-absorbing 
interest to all who look for the advancement and higher develop- 
ment of the human race. This work is the only revised and 
authorized publication of Dr. Talmage's sermons. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 



CHAPTER I. 
A PERSONAL EXPLORATION OF THE HAUNTS OF VICE. 

Ezekiel Commanded to Explore Sin in His Day — Divine Commis- 
sion to Explore the Iniquities of Our Cities — "Wild Oats" — Criti- 
cism of Papers — Three Million Souls for an Audience — Houses of 
Dissipation — Moral Corpses — Cheapness of Furnishing — Music and 
Pictures— The Inhabitants Repulsive — Surrounded by Music — 
Young Men from the Country — Triumph of Sin — Blood of a 
Mother's Heart — Cannot Hide Bad Habits — Fratricide and Matri- 
cide — The Way of the Transgressor is Hard — Destroyed without 
Remedy 29 

CHAPTER II. 
LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 

"Policeman, What of the Night?" — Desperadoes in Jerusalem — 
King Solomon's Household — Night of Three Watches — Two Elders 
of the Church — Muscular Christianity — Pulpit Physical Giants — 
Spiritual Athletes — Thomas Chalmers — Deepest Moral Slush of 
His Time — Hue and Cry Raised — "Ye Hypocrites" — Men of Wealth 
Support Haunts of Sin — Gospel for the Lepers of Society — A Mo- 
loch Temple — Heads of Families — Public Officers — Obstacles in the 
Way — Dens of Darkness — The Men who have Forsaken their 
Homes 43 

CHAPTER III. 
THE GATES OF HELL. 

Gambling Houses — Costly Magnificence Untrue — Merciless Place 
— Twelve Gates — Impure Literature — Novelette Literature — Wide 
Gate — The Dissolute Dance — First Step to Eternal Ruin — Indiscreet 
Apparel — Fashion Plates of the Time of Louis XVI. — Henry VIII. — 
Modest Apparel — Fashion Plate of Tyre — Alcoholic Beverage — 
License Question — Gates Swing In — Is there Escape? — Practical Use 
of these Sermons — Holy Imbecility — Christmas Night at the Farm 
House— Poor Wanderer— "Oh ! Mother." 57 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

WHOM I SAW AND WHOM i MISSED. 

Genesis xiv:10 — American Cities — Devil Advertising Free Gratis 
- — Purlieus of Death — Hard Working Classes Missed — Grand Trunk 
Railroad — Fortunate Young Men — Vortex of Death — Midnight on 
Earth — Sense of Piety — "Kept" — Maelstrom of Iniquity — Aching 
Hearts— Fragments of Broken Homes — Miserable Copy of European 
Dissipations — Toadyism — Revolution Needed — Public Opinion — 
Police Complicity — Edward Livingstone — The Printing Press — 
John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, Five Oceans of Mercy — "Home, 
Sweet Home." 71 

CHAPTER V. 

UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 

A Mighty City — Midnoon — Midnight — Clerical Reformers — Their 
Brave Charge — Mortal Fear — Tenement Houses — Ring the Bell — 
Flash the Lantern — Night' s Lodging — Silken Purse — Hear ! Hear ! ! — 
The Homeless — The Bootblack — The Newsboy — "You Miserable 
Rat!" — New Recruits — New Regiments — The Shipwrecked — The 
Two Magic Lanterns — The Home — A Change of Scene — Another! 
Still Another ! ! — Flowers — Greenwood — Poverty — Coroner — Pot- 
ters' Field — Close the Two Lanterns 83 

CHAPTER VI. 

SATANIC AGITATION. 

Enemy^of all Good— "Give me 500,000 Souls"— But a Short Time 
— Elevated Railroads — Crowded to Death — Underground Rail- 
roads — Castle Garden — Jenny Lind — Trinity — New York Dailies — 
Mightiness of the Press — "Nations Born in a Day"— Exhaustion of 
Health — Newsboys' Lodging House — Boys — Extra Romp and Hilar- 
ity — Over the Doorway — Savings Banks — Western Fever Among 
Them — Howard Mission — Good and Bad Amusements — Temptation 
— "Come with Me"— Stinging Remorse — To Hesitate is to Die. . . .96 

CHAPTER VII. 

AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 

The Attack-^Night of Theft and Assassination — "Who is My 
Neighbor?" — Responsibility — Rogues' Gallery — Loaded Pistols — 
Show Me Crime — Respect Crime Pays the Law — "A Den of Thieves" 
— Plans Matured — Liquors Poisoned Four Times — Their Modus 
Operandi — $75,000 Check — Division of Spoils — Blackmailers — 
Never Fear Them — A Principle Laid Down — Professionals — Dens 
that Excite Only Pity — "You Must Dress Better" — Crime the 
Offspring of Political Dishonesties — Immense Cost of Crime — Grace 
—No Admittance—Two Incidents-— A Second Deluge — Mercy, , . 112 



CONTENTS. 



ix 



CHAPTER VIII. 
CLUB-HOUSES LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE. 

Two Armies — Sword Fencing — Unlucky Clip — An Honest His- 
tory of Clubs — Leading Clubs of Europe — Of America — Their 
Wealth — Membership — Furnishing — Fascination of Club Houses — ■ 
Another Style — Flushed Face — " Chips" — Test their Influences — 
Generous at the Club, Stingy in the Home Circle — Thousands of 
Homes Clubbed to Death — Epitaph — Effect on Your Occupation — 
A Third Test— A Vital Question— The Little Child's Influence— The 
Three Strands— Pull for Your Life 128 

CHAPTER IX. 

POISON IN THE CALDRON. 

The Students of Gilgal — Gathering Herbs — Death in the Pot — 
Iniquity must be Roughly Handled — Its Hiding Place — A Good 
Home is Deathless in Its Influence— Unhappy Homes are Blood 
Relatives to Crime and Rascality — Occasional Exceptions — An In- 
dolent Life — The City Van — Four Ways of Getting Money — An 
Incident — How to Depreciate Real Estate — Warning from Gladstone 
— The Marriage Day— The Scene Changes — Leaving the Farm 
House — Anxiety of Parents— The End — Put Back Now! 140 

CHAPTER X. 

THE CART-ROPE INIQUITY. 

Construction of a Rope — No One Can Stand Aloof — Honest Gam- 
bling Establishments — An Introduction to a First-Class One — Sec- 
ond Class— The "Roper In"— Policy— "Saddle"— "Gig"— "Horse" 
— Exchange — Desire for Gain — Incidents — Close Proximity to Wall 
Street — Gift Enterprises — Their Evil Tendency — Be Honest or Die 
—The Prodigal— The Game Ended 151 

CHAPTER XL 

THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 

Solid Satisfaction — An Error Corrected — Albert Barnes— Plant 
One Grain of Corn — Mere Social Position — Do Not Covet It — A 
Worldly Marriage — Mere Personal Attractions — Abigail — Make 
Yourself Attractive — Not Ashamed of Age — Culture Your Heart — 
At the Hospital— "Seven Days"— "Hold My Hand"— Flatteries of 
Men — An Angel — Discipleship of Fashion — Fashion Plates — Bibli- 
cal Fashion — A Beautiful Attire — A Bright World 160 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE SINS OF SUMMER WATERING PLACES. 

An Ancient Watering Place — Tradition Concerning It — Modern 
Watering Places— A Picture — The First Temptation — Sacred Parade 
— Crack Sermons — Quartette — Air Bewitched — Horse Racing — De- 
ceptive Titles— Saratoga— Bet? Run High— -Greenhorns Think All is 



X 



CONTENTS. 



Fair — Sacrifice of Physical Strength — Fash enable Idiots — "Do 
Thyself No Harm" — Hasty Alliances — Domestic Infelicities — 
Twenty Blanks to One Prize — Load of Life — The Fop — Baneful 
Literature — Its Popularity at Watering Places — The Intoxicating 
Beverage 170 

CHAPTER XIII. 
THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 

Intense Excitement — The Stranger's Reception — A Wild Laugh 
— Temptations to Commercial Fraud— "This Rivalry is Awful" — 
Decide for Yourself — One with God is a Majority — Political Life 
— Allurements to an Impure Life — Cormorants of Darkness — Six 
Rainbows — A Thousand of Them — "Tick, Tick!" — An Enraptured 
Vision 183 



CHAPTER XIV. 
RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 



Ancient Tyre — A Majestic City — Its Magnificence — Its Present Po- 
sition — Character of a City — Cities Hold the World's Sceptre — If an 
Unprincipled Mayoralty or Common Council, there Will be Unlim- 
ited License for all Kinds of Trickery and Sin — Questions that Inter- 
est the Merchant — Educational Interests — In Some Cities these 
Interests are Settled in the Low Caucus — Character of Officials 
Affects the Domestic Circle — Even Religious Interests Affected — 
John Morrissey! — Pray for Your Mayor and All in Authority — 
Perils and Temptations of the Police — An Affecting Incident. . .193 



CHAPTER XV. 
SAFEGUARDS FOR YOUNG MEN. 



David and Absalom — A Bad Boy — A Broken-Hearted Father — 
"Is the Young Man Safe?"— Same Question Must be Asked To-Day 
— Not as Other Men Are— Wm. M. Tweed — His Strong Nature — Suc- 
cess — Failure — Who Would Live Such a Life? — Love of Home — Can 
Never Forget It — A Second Home — Nothing Coarse or Gross at 
Home — Industrious Habits — The First Horticulturist — Work or 
Die — A High Ideal of Life — Aim High — Respect for the Sabbath — 
An Incident — The Greatest Safeguard — The Great Want — "I am 
the Young Man" — The Turning Point 207 



CHAPTER XVI. 
THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



Voices of Nature — This Life is a Scene of Toil and Struggle — In- 
dustry — All Classes and Conditions of Society Must Commingle — 
Democratic Principle of the Gospel — Hard to Keep the Heart Right 
— The Man of War — The Victorious Veteran of Thirty Years' Con- 
flict — Life is Full of Pretension and Sham — How Few People are 
Natural — A Great Field for Charity— Poor Wanderers — Strong 
Faith of Childhood — All the People Looking Forward — No Census 
—Twelve Gates 221 



CONTENTS. 



xi 



CHAPTER XVII. 

HEKOES IN COMMON LIFE. 

Great Military Chieftains — Unrolling a Scroll of Heroes — Heroes 
of the Sick Room — Heroes of Toil — Sword vs. Needle — Great Battle- 
fields — Domestic Injustice — No Bitter Words — Peabody — Grinnell 
— Missionaries at the West — Sacrificing Parents — Melrose Abbey — 
The Atkins Family — "Fire!" — Who Are Those Paupers? — Corona- 
tion Day — Do Not Envy Anyone — The Great Captain's Cheer. .230 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 

A Dead City — Midnight Witchery — Melrose Abbey — Alhambra — 
Jerusalem in Ruins — The Midnight Ride — Midnight Exploration — 
Jerusalem Rebuilt — Plato — Demosthenes — Church Affection — The 
Church — Sacrifices for It — Secret of Backsliding — Building Without 
Secure Foundation — Old-Fashioned Way — Does It Hurt? — New- 
fashioned Way — Wants a Ride — Reason People are Angered — 
"You're a Pauper" — Triumphant Sadness — Palace of Shushan — Its 
Immensity — Homesickness — The Blacksmith — A Bereaved Mother 
> — A Parlor in Philadelphia — Never Give Up — Our Refuge 241 



CONTENTS. 



PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 

Wild Pigeons — Call Bird — Two Classes of Temptation — Super- 
ficial and Subterraneous — Generous Young Men — Stingy and Mean 
Young Men — The Skeptic — Jonah — Progress, Sir !■ — Light of Nature 
— Burke — Raphael — Mozart — Milton — Hold on to It — Dishonest 
Employers — Terrible and Crushing Fact — Eight Lies — Drug Clerk — 
The Moral — The Dissolute — Self Righteous — Trumpet of Warning 
—The World's Bridal . 23 

CHAPTER II. 

STRANGERS WARNED. 

Solomon Recognizing Strangers — Great Immigration — Hotels of 
this Country — "I Must Join that Procession" — To the Academy — 
The Picture Gallery — The Young Men's Christian Association Rooms 
— Up Broadway — A Gettysburg — Underground Life — Country Cus- 
tomer and City Merchant — "Drummers" — Mt. Washington — Seven 
Apples — "Slicing off Pieces" — French Sabbaths — Only an Explorer 
— Sharp Business Man — Strangers Welcome — Edward Stanley . . . 3§ 

CHAPTER III. 

PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 

Breaking in upon God's Heritage — Uprooting and Devouring 
Classes of Society — Public Criminals — Their Immense Cost — Con- 
flagration of Morals — "Stop Thief!" — Society has a Grudge against 
Criminals — Punishment Hardens Them — More Potential Influences 
Needed — Raymond Street Jail — Black Hole of Calcutta — Old and 
Hardened Offenders — Young Men Who Have Committed their First 
Crime — Sir William Blackstone — Unworthy Officials — "Whisky 
Ring ' ' — "Tammany Ring" — "Erie Ring" — Fenses — Skinners — Con- 
fidence Men — The Idle Classes — Useless and Dangerous — Oppressed 
Poor — Army of Honest Poor — Children's Aid Society — Dorcas So- 
ciety 45 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 

A God of Some Kind — Aaron and the Golden Calf — Moses' Re- 
turn — When a Man Gets Mad He is Apt to Break All the Ten Com- 

xiii 



xiv 



CONTENTS. 



mandments — Modern Idolatry — Wall Street — Bank of England — 
Michigan Wheat — -Maryland Peaches — Immensity of its Temple — 
Every God its Temple and its Sacrifice — Its Victims — Solomon's 
Sacrifice — Clinking Gold and Silver — Destruction of the Golden Calf 
Certain — The Golden Calf Made of Borrowed Gold — Borrowing, the 
Ruin of the American People — Nothing Heavier Than the Spirit 
Crosses the Jordan — Fool! Fool! Fool! — Change Your Temples. .61 

CHAPTER V. 

DRY GOODS RELIGION. 

First Wardrobe — The Prodigal — Goddess of Fashion — Men as 
Idolators — Tobacco — Animated Checkerboards — Benedict Arnold — 
Sell His Country to Clothe His Wife — Expensive Establishments the 
Business Man's Ruin — Extravagance of Clerks — Tragedy of Human 
Clothes— Fashion the Foe of all Christian Almsgiving — Ninety 
Cents on the Dollar — Theft of Ten Per Cent. — "What a Love of a 
Bonnet!"— "What a Perfect Fright ! "—Fashion Belittles the Intel- 
lect — French Roof on the "House of Many Mansions" — Countess 
of Huntington — Beau Brummel — Vashti 72 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 

Good Water — Jericho — Municipal Corruption — Cleansing Our 
Cities — Work for Broom and Shovel — Character Illustrated by the 
Purity or Filth of Surroundings — First Thing a Converted Man Does 
— Power of a Christian Printing Press — Publisher and Bookseller — 
Our Common Schools — Ignorance the Mother of Hydra-Headed 
Crime — Ignorance in New England — Pennsylvania — New York — 
The United States — Reformatory Societies Important Elements — 
Antietam — The Greatest Remedial Influence — Homeless Children — 
"The Perlice, Sir" — Inebriates' Children — Neglected Children — Their 
Faces — Five Points — The Merchant — "Lend Me Five Dollars" — 
Mary Lost — Mary Found 83 

CHAPTER VII. 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 

The Ornithology of the Bible— Elijah— The Ravens— The Great 
Conflict To-Day — The Great Question with a Vast Majority of Peo- 
ple — A Morning Hunt for Ravens — Supply Immeasurable — Be Con- 
tent — Recourses Infinite — Rochelle — Drought in Connecticut — Bi- 
ography of a Life— Relief by an Unexpected Conveyance — White 
Providence — Black Providence — White Angel — One of Three 
Scourges — Dark Shadow on the Nursery — Mrs. Jane Pithey — The 
Two Lives 95 

CHAPTER VIII. 

THE HORNET'S MISSION, 

The Insect World — The Persians — Hittites — Great Behemoths of 
Trouble — The Insectile Annoyances of Life — "Only a Little Nerv- 
ous" — The Wheel Must Keep Going Round — Friends Always Saying 
Disagreeable Things — Harvest Field of Discouragement — Local 



CONTENTS. 



sv 



Physical Trouble — Domestic Irritation — Business Annoyances — The 
Family of Wasps — Nest of "Yellow Jackets"— The Gymnasium — 
Homeopathic Doses — Knock-Down Doses — Hamelin — Painting of 
Cotopaxi — Fools and Sluggards — Poly carp — "All Things Work To- 
gether for Good." 108 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE OUTSIDE SHEEP 

No Monopoly — Apple-Orchard — Severe Guards — Other Sheep — 
MacDonald — Non-Church Goers — Safe Side — Complete Armor— 
Wreck of the Atlantic — Launch the Boat ! — Saved !— Fishing — Posi- 
tive Rejectors — An Insufficient Portion — An Experiment — Try It- 
Newton — Boyle — Doubting — Hope — Peace — Love — Evil Habit — 
Good Templars — Rebuld Your Home — No Hope — Early Days — The 
Bars Down 118 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 

The Brigands of Jerusalem — Years of Maltreatment — Thirst — 
Vinegar — Wine — Life in Sunshine — Acid in Lives of Prominent 
People — No Sympathy Expected — Betrayal of Friends — Sourness of 
Pain — The Ashes — Compressed in One Sour Cup — Sourness of Pov- 
erty — Wilkie — Glorious Company — Privation — Sourness of Bereave- 
ment — Charmed Circle Broken — Jesus Wept — Vacant Chair — Sour- 
ness of the Death Hour — Curiosity — Clean the Lens — Vessel Without 
Water — "Dip Your Buckets'" — Fighting Their Own Battles — Nana 
Sahib — Gem of Great Value — Break the Infatuation 131 



CHAPTER XL 

THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 

Allegory — Metaphor — The Hunters' Return — The Fascinating 
Life of a Hunter — Hunting in England — India — Western Plains — 
Hunting the World — Edgar A. Poe— ^World's Plaudits — A Change — 
Financial Success — Dollar Hunt — Northern Pacific Bonds — Ralston 
— Higher Treasures — Heartfelt Satisfaction — Glorious Divisions of 
Spoils— Folly of Worldly Hunt— A Bare Hand— Census of Old Peo- 
ple — No Division of Spoils — Death in the Chase — Sudden and Radi- 
cal Change — Instantaneous — One Touch of Electricity — What is 
Religion? 142 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE BLACKSMITH'S CAPTIVITY. 

A Scalding Subjugation — Mines of Iron and Brass — Only Two 
Swords Left — Weaponless People — Reduced to a File — Keep Weap- 
ons Out of the Hands of Your Enemies— The World has Gobbled 
up Everything — Infidelity — Capture Science — Capture Scholarship 
— Capture Philosophy — A Learned Clergy — Recapture Your Weap- 



xri 



CONTENTS. 



ons — Resources Hidden and Undeveloped — "Forward, the Whole 
Line!" — Take Advantage of the World's Sharpening Instruments — 
Get the Best Grindstones — Small Allowance Iniquity Puts a Man — 
Bitter Cup— Dark Night — Deep Pangs — Terrible End — Warning Bell 
on Inchcape Rock — A Sad Loss — Going to Vindicate the Truth — No 
Newspaper Assaults for Six Weeks — Go Ahead — Clap Your 
Hands 153 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DIET OF ASHES. 

A Great Feast — Guests Sit Down Amid Outbursts of Hilarity — 
Ashes — Testimony of Those Who Have Been Magnificently Suc- 
cessful — Testimony of Kings — Commercial Adepts — Come Up, Ye 
Millionaires — Sinful Pleasurists — A Troop of Infidels — Placid Skeptic 
— Lord Chesterfield — What Now of All Your Sarcasm? — Hungry — 
Where Found — The Antwerp Merchant and Charles V. — Mortgage 
— Only One Word — Take Bread — Great Fire — Echo and Re-Echo — 
Departure Sudden — The Spaniard and the Moor — The Swiftest 
Horse— Escape— Fly ! Fly ! 1 64 



CHAPTER XIV. 

KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 

No One Goes to Ruin Alone — A Convicted Criminal's Words — 
Bad Company — Olden Times — Places of Business — A Challenge — 
A Reward Offered — New Clerk — Show Him the City — Forgotten 
His Pocket-Book — Familiarity — Broken In — Beware — Glance of 
Purity — Shun the Skeptic — "Explain That" — Take them All — He 
Has Gone! — Shun Idlers — His Touch is Death — "I want you, Sir!" 
— Self Improvement — The Harvest Gathered in Old Age — Avoid 
Perpetual Pleasure-Seekers — Life Occupation to Sport — A Beauty in 
Sports — Declaration of Brummell — Review — Always be Polite — A 
Beautiful Daughter 173 

CHAPTER XV. 

THE PEINCESS IN DISGUISE. 

A Sick Child — Skill Exhausted — Princess in Disguise — An Em- 
peror in Disguise — Could not be Deceived — Wickedness Disposed to 
Involve Others — Iniquity a Great Coward — AaronJBurr — Blenner- 
hassett — Benedict Arnold Secures Money and Position — Major 
Andre, Brave and Brilliant, Suffers Death — Only Satellites of Some 
Adroit Villain — Ignominious Fraud a Juggler — Stand off from Chi- 
canery — Royalty Sometimes Passes in Disguise — Kings Without a 
Crown — Poverty — A Pauper — A Grander Disguise — Sympathy and 
Help — The Amazed Doctors — A Pilgrim — People put Masks On — 
The Lord Tears them Off— Mask Torn Off— The Tragedy of the Pill- 
Box — Indian Mixtures — Nostrums that are Choking the Cemetery — 
Exact, Minute and Precise 183 



LIFE AND SERMONS 

OF 

T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D. 



Rev. Dr. Thomas DeWitt Talmage, the noted Pres- 
byterian divine, died at his Washington, D. C, resi- 
dence at 9 p. m. Saturday, April 12, 1902. He had 
been unconscious for many hours before his death, and 
the end came gradually. 

His family surrounded the bedside when the end came. 
The congestion of the brain, which had developed into 
an acute inflammation, was the direct cause of his 
death. 

Visitors thronged the residence all day, but were de- 
nied admittance to the sick room. The physicians were 
aware of the failing condition of the patient and held 
out no hope of recovery to relatives and friends. 

Influenza attacked the noted divine some months 
ago and soon developed into catarrhal symptoms. A 
trip to Mexico availed little, and Dr. Talmage returned 
to Washington reconciled to his approaching end. 

Dr. Talmage was born January 7, 1832, in Bound 
Brook, Somerset County, N. J. His father was a farmer 
of much vigor and consistency of character ; his mother 
a woman of noted energy, hopefulness and equanimity. 

13 



14 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Both parents were in marked respects characteristic. 
Differences of disposition and methods blended in them 
into a harmonious, consecrated, benignant and cheery 
life. The father won all the confidence and the best of 
the honors a hard-sensed truly American community 
had to yield. The mother was that counseling and 
quietly provident force which made her a helpmeet in- 
deed, and her home the center and sanctuary of the 
sweetest influences that have fallen on the path of a 
large number of children, of whom four sons are all min- 
isters of the Gospel. From a period ante-dating the 
Revolution, the ancestors of our subject were members 
of the Dutch Reformed Church, in which Dr. Talmage's 
father was the leading lay-office bearer through 
a life extending beyond fourscore years. The 
youngest of the children, it seemed doubtful at first 
whether DeWitt would follow his brothers into the 
ministry. His earliest preference was the law, the 
studies of which he pursued for a year after his 
graduation with honors from the University of the .City 
of New York. The faculties which would have made 
him the greatest jury advocate of the age were, however, 
preserved for and directed toward the pulpit by an un- 
rest which took the very sound of a cry within him for 
months, 11 Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. " When 
he submitted to it, the always ardent but never urged 
hopes of his honored parents were realized. He entered 
the ministry from the New Brunswick Seminary of The- 
ology. As his destiny and powers came to manifestation 
in Brooklyn, his pastoral life prior to that was but a 
preparation for it. It can, therefore, be indicated as an 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



15 



incidental stage in his career rather than treated at length 
as a principal of it. His first settlement was at 
Belleville, on the beautiful Passaic, in New Jersey. For 
three years there he underwent an excellent practical 
education in the conventional ministry. His congrega- 
tion was about the most cultured and exacting in the 
rural regions of the sterling little state. Historically, it 
was known to be about the oldest society of Protestant- 
ism in New Jersey. Its records, as preserved, run back 
over 200 years, but it is known to have had a stronger 
life the better part of a century more. Its structure is 
regarded as one of the finest of any country congregation 
in the United States. No wonder it stands within rifle- 
shot of the quarry from which old Trinity in New 
York was hewn. The value (and the limits) of stereo- 
typed preaching and what he did not know came as an 
instructive and disillusionizing force to the theological 
tyro at Belleville. There also came and remained 
strong friendships, inspiring revivals, and sacred coun- 
sels. 

By natural promotion three years at Syracuse suc- 
ceeded three at Belleville. That cultivated, critical city 
furnished Mr. Talmage the value of an audience in 
which professional men were predominant in influence. 
His preaching there grew tonic and free. As Mr. Pitt 
advised a young friend, he "risked himself. " The church 
grew from few to many — from a state of coma to ath- 
letic life. The preacher learned to go to school to hu- 
manity and his own heart. The lessons they taught 
him agreed with what was boldest and most compelling 
in the spirit of the revealed Word. Those whose claims 



16 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



were sacred to him found the saline climate of Syracuse 
a cause of unhealth. Otherwise it is likely that that 
most delightful region in the United States — Central 
New York — for men of letters who equally love nature 
and culture, would have been the home of Mr. Talmage 
for life. 

The next seven years of Mr. Talmage 's life were spent 
in Philadelphia. There his powers got " set. " He learned 
what it was he could best do. He had the courage of 
his consciousness and he did it. Previously he might 
have felt it incumbent on him to give to pulpit traditions 
the homage of compliance — though at Syracuse "the 
more excellent way, " any man's own way, so that he 
have the divining gift of genius and the nature attune 
to all high sympathies and purposes— had in glimpses 
come to him. He realized that it was his duty and mis- 
sion in the world to make it hear the gospel. The church 
was not to him in numbers a select few, in organization 
a monopoly. It was meant to be the conqueror and 
transformer of the world. For seven years he wrought 
with much success on this theory, all the time realizing 
that his plans could come to fullness only under condi- 
tions that enabled him to build from the bottom up an 
organization which could get nearer to the masses and 
which would have no precedents to be afraid of as ghosts 
in its path. Hence he ceased from being the leading 
preacher in Philadelphia, to become in Brooklyn, the 
leading preacher in the world. 

Tannage's work at Brooklyn for years is known to 
all our readers. It began in a cramped brick rectangle, 
capable of holding 1,200, and he came to it on "the 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



17 



call" of nineteen. In less than two years that was ex- 
changed for an iron structure, with raised seats, the in- 
terior curved like a horse-shoe, the pulpit a platform 
bridging the ends. That held 3,000 persons. It lasted 
just long enough to revolutionize church architecture 
in cities into harmony with common sense. Smaller 
duplicates of it started in every quarter, three in 
Brooklyn, two in New York, one in Montreal, one in 
Louisville, any number in Chicago, two in San Francisco, 
like numbers abroad. Then it burnt up, that from its 
ashes the present stately and most sensible structure 
might rise. Gothic, of brick and stone, cathedral-like 
above, amphitheatre-like below, it held 5,000 as easily 
as one person, while all could hear and see equally 
well. In a large sense the people built these edifices. 
Their architects were Leonard Vaux and John Welch 
respectively. It is sufficiently indicative to say in gen- 
eral of Dr. Talmage's work in the Tabernacle, that his 
audiences were always as large as the place would 
hold; that twenty-three papers in Christendom statedly 
published his entire sermons and Friday night discourses, 
exclusive of the dailies of the United States; that the 
papers girdle the globe, being published in London, Liv- 
erpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast, Toronto, Montreal, 
St. John's, Sidney, Melbourne, San Francisco, St. Louis, 
Cincinnati, St. Paul, New Orleans, Chicago, Boston, 
Raleigh, New York and many others. To pulpit 
labors of this responsibility should be added consider- 
able pastoral work, the conduct of the Lay college, 
and constantly recurring lecturing and literary work, to 
fill out the public life of a very busy man. 



18 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



On the tenth anniversary of his pastorate of the 
Tabernacle in Brooklyn, Dr. Talmage became quite 
reminiscent, and in speaking of himself and his work, 
said : 

"I started life in an old-fashioned Christian family, 
where they had prayers morning and night, and always 
asked a blessing at the table; and there was no excep- 
tion to the rule, for, if my father was sick or away, my 
mother led and while sometimes, when my father led, 
we found it hard to repress childish restlessness, there 
was something in the tones of my mother, and there was 
something in the tears which always choked her utter- 
ance before she got through with the prayer, that was 
irresistible. The fact is, that mothers get their hearts 
so wound around their children that when they think 
of their future, and the trials and temptations to which 
they may be subjected they cannot control their emo- 
tions as easily as men do. While he had a very sym- 
pathetic nature, I never saw my father cry but once, 
and that was when they put the lid over my mother. 
Her hair was white as the snow, and her face was 
very much wrinkled, for she had worked very hard 
for us all and had had many sicknesses and bereave- 
ments. I do not know how she appeared to the 
world, nor what artists may have thought of her 
features; but to us she was perfectly beautiful. There, 
were twelve of us children, but six of them are in 
heaven. I started for the legal profession with an admi- 
ration for it which has never cooled, for I cannot now 
walk along by a court house, or hear an attorney address 
a jury, without having all my pulses accelerated and 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



19 



my enthusiasm aroused. I can but express my admiration 
for a profession adorned with the names of Marshall and 
Story, and Kent, and Rufus Choate and John McLean. 
But God converted my soul and put me into the min- 
istry by a variety of circumstances, shutting me up 
to that glorious profession. And what a work it is! I 
thank God every day for the honor of being associated 
with what I consider the most elevated, educated, re- 
fined, and consecrated band of men on this planet — the 
Christian ministry of America. I know, I think, about 
five thousand of them personally, and they are as near 
perfection as human nature ever gets to be. Some of 
them on starvation salaries, and with worn health and 
amid ten thousand disadvantages, trying to bring com- 
fort and pardon to the race. I am proud to have my 
name on the roll with them, though my name may be 
at the very bottom of the roll, and am willing to be their 
servant for Jesus's sake. But we all have a work. "To 
every man his work.' ' I will not hide the fact that it 
has been the chief ambition of my ministry to apply a 
religion six thousand years old to the present day — a re- 
ligion of four thousand years B. C. to 1869 and 1879 
A. D. So I went to work to find the oldest religion I 
could see. I sought for it in my Bible, and I found it 
in the garden of Eden, where the serpent's head is prom- 
ised a bruising by the heel of Christ. I said, "That is 
the religion/' and I went to work to see what kind of 
men that religion made, and I found Joshua, and Moses, 
and Paul, and John the Evangelist, and John Bunyan, 
and John Wesley, and John Summerfield, and five hun- 
dred other Johns as good or approximate. I said: 



20 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



"Ah! that is the religion I want to preach — the Edenic 
religion that bruises the serpent's head. " That is what 
I have been trying to do. The serpent's head must be 
bruised. I hate him. I never see his head but I throw 
something at him. That is what I have been trying to do 
during these courses of sermons, to bruise the serpent's 
head, and every time I bruised him he hissed, and the 
harder I bruised him the harder he hissed. You never 
trod on a serpent but he hissed. But I trod on him with 
only one foot. Before I get through I shall tread on 
him with both feet. If God will help me I shall bruise 
the oppression and the fraud and the impurity coiled 
up amid our great cities. Come now, Gocl helping me, I 
declare a war of twenty-five years against iniquity and 
for Christ, if God will let me live so long. To this con- 
flict I bring every muscle of my body, every faculty of 
my mind, every passion of my soul. Between here and 
my bed in Greenwood there shall not be an inch of re- 
treat, or indifference, or of compromise. After I am dead, 
I ask of the world and of the church only one thing — not 
for a marble slab, not for a draped chair, not for a 
long funeral procession, not for a flattering ovation. A 
plain box in a plain wagon will be enough, if the elders 
of the church will stand here and say that I never com- 
promised with evil, and always presented Christ to the 
people. Then let father Pearson, if he be still alive, 
pronounce the benediction, and the mourners go home. 
I do not forget that my style of preaching and my work 
in general have been sometimes severely criticised by 
some of my clerical brethren. It has come to be under- 
stood that at installations and at dedications I shall be 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



21 



assailed. I have sometimes said to prominent men in 
my church, "Go down to such and such an installation, 
and hear them excoriate Talmage. " And they go, and 
they are always gratified ! I have heard that sometimes 
in Brooklyn, when an audience gets dull through lack of 
ventilation in the church, the pastor will look over to- 
ward Brooklyn Tabernacle and say something that will 
wake all the people up, and they will hunch each other 
and say, "That's Talmage!" You see, there are some 
ministers who want me to clo just the way they do ; and, 
as I cannot see my duty in their direction, they some- 
times call me all sorts cf names. Seme of them call me 
one thing, and some call me another thing; but I think 
the three words that arc most glibly uscl in this connec- 
tion are" mountebanks, "" sensationalism, buffoonery" 
and a variety of phrases showing that some of my dear 
clerical brethren are not happy. Now, I have the ad- 
vantage of all such critical brethren in the fact that I 
never assault them though they assault me. The dear 
souls ! I wish them all the good I can think of — large 
audiences, $15,000 salaries, and houses full of children, 
and heaven to boot ! I rub my hands all over their heads 
in benediction. You never heard me say one word 
against any Christian worker, and you never will. The 
fact is, that I am so busy in assaulting the powers of 
darkness that I have no time to stop and stab any of my 
own regiment in the back. Now, there are two ways in 
which I might answer some of the critical clergy. I 
might answer them by the same bitterness and acrimony 
and caricature with which some of them have assaulted 
me; but would that advance our holy religion? Do you 



22 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



not know that there is nothing that so prejudices people 
against Christianity as to see ministers fighting? It 
takes two to make a battle, so I will let them go on. It 
relieves them and does not hurt me! I suppose that in 
the war of words I might be their equal, for nobody has 
ever charged me with lack of vocabulary! But then, you 
plainly see that if I assaulted them with the same bit- 
terness with which they assaulted me, no good cause 
would be advanced. There is another way, and that is 
by giving them kindly, loving, and brotherly advice. 
"Ah!" you say, 11 that's the way; that's the Christian 
way. " Then I advise my critical brethren of the clergy 
to remember what every layman knows, whether in the 
church or in the w T orld, that you never build yourself up 
by trying to pull anybody else down. You see, my 
dear critical brethren — and I hope the audience will 
make no response to what I am saying — you see, my 
dear critical brethren, you fail in two respects when you 
try to do that ; first, you do not build yourselves up, and 
secondly, you do not pull anybody else down. Show me 
the case in five hundred years where any pulpit, or any 
church, has been built up by bombarding some other 
pulpit. The fact is, we have an immense membership 
in this church, and they are all my personal friends. 
Then, we have a great many regular attendants who are 
not church members, and a great many occasional attend- 
ants, from all parts of the land, and these people know 
that I never give any bad advice in this place, and that 
I always give good advice, and that God by conversion 
saves as many souls in this church every year as he saves 
in any other church. Now, my dear critical brethren 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



23 



the clergy, why assault all these homes throughout the 
world? When you assault me you assault them. Be- 
side that, " to every man his work." I wish you all 
prosperity, critical brethren. You, for instance, are 
metaphysical. May you succeed in driving people into 
heaven by raising a great fog on earth. You are se- 
verely logical. Hook the people into glory by the horns 
of a dilemma. You are anecdotal. Charm the people 
to truth by capital stories well told. You are illustra- 
tive. Twist all the flowers of the field and all the stars 
of heaven into your sermon. You are classical. Wield 
the club of Hercules for the truth, and make Parnassus 
bow to Calvary. Your work is not so much in the. pul- 
pit as from house to house, by pastoral visitation. The 
Lord go with you as you go to take tea with the old 
ladies, and hold the children on your lap and tell them 
how much they look like their father and mother! Stay 
all the afternoon and evening, and if it is a damp night 
stay all night! All prosperity to you in this pastoral 
work, and may you by that means get the whole family 
into the kingdom of God. You will reach people I 
never will reach, and I will reach people you never will 
reach. Go ahead. In every possible way, my dear crit- 
ical brethren of the clergy, will I help you. If you 
have anything going on in your church — lecture, con- 
cert, religious meeting — send me the notice and I will 
read it here with complimentary remarks, and when you 
call me a hard name I will call you a blessed fellow, and 
when you throw a brickbat at me, an ecclesiastical 
brickbat, then I will pour holy oil on your head until it 
runs clear down on your coat collar! There is nothing 



24 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



that so invigorates and inspires me as the opportunity to 
say pleasant things about my clerical brethren. God pros- 
per you, my critical brethren of the ministry, and put a 
blessing on your head, and a blessing in your shoe, and 
a blessing in your gown — if you wear one — and a bless- 
ing before you, and a blessing behind you, and a blessing 
under you, and a blessing on the top of you, so that you 
cannot get out until you mount into heaven, where I ap- 
point a meeting with you on the north side of the river, 
under the Tree of Life, to talk over the honor we had on 
earth of working each one in his own way. "To every 
man his work." We ought to be an example, my critic- 
al brethren, to other occupations. How often we hear 
lawyers talking against lawyers, and doctors talking 
against doctors, and merchants talking against mer- 
chants. You would hardly go into a store On one side 
of the street to get a merchant's opinion of a merchant 
on the other side of the street in the same line of busi- 
ness. We ought, in the ministry, to be examples to all 
other occupations. If we have spites and jealousies, let 
us hide them forever. If we have not enough divine 
grace to do it, let common worldly prudence dictate. 

But during these ten years in which I have preached 
to } T ou, I have not only received the criticism of the 
world, but I have often received its misrepresentation, 
and I do not suppose any man of any age escapes if he 
be trying to do a particular work for God and the church. 
It was said that Rowland Hill advertised he would on 
the following Sabbath make a pair of shoes in his pul- 
pit, in the presence of his audience, and that he came 
into the pulpit with a pair of boots and a knife, and hav- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



25 



ing shied off the top of the boots, presented the pair of 
shoes. It was said that Whitefield was preaching one 
summer day, and a fly buzzed around his head, and he 
said, "The sinner will be destroyed as certainly as I 
catch that fly. " He clutched at the fly and missed it. 
The story goes that then he said that after all perhaps 
the sinner might escape through salvation! Twenty 
years ago the pictorials of London were full of pictures 
of Charles Spurgeon, astride the rail of the pulpit, 
riding down in the presence of the audience to show how 
easy it was to go into sin ; and then the pictorials repre- 
sented him as climbing up the railing of the pulpit to 
show how hard it was to get to heaven. Mr. Beechcr 
was said to have entered his pulpit one warm day, and, 
wiping the perspiration from his forehead, to have said, 
"It's hot!" with an expletive more emphatic than devo- 
tional! Lies! Lies! All of them lies. No minister of 
the gospel escapes. Certainly I have not escaped! A 
few years ago, when I was living in Philadelphia, I came 
on to unite in holy marriage Dr. Boynton, the eloquent 
geological lecturer, with a lady of New ,York. I solem- 
nized the marriage cermony in the parlors of the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel. The couple made their wedding excur- 
sion in a balloon that left Central Park within the pres- 
ence of five thousand people. When I got back to 
Philadelphia I saw in the papers that I had disgraced 
the holy ordinance of marriage by performing it a mile 
high, above the earth, in a balloon ! And there are thou- 
sands of people to this day who believe that I solem- 
nized that marriage above the clouds. About eight or 
nine years ago, in our chapel, at a Christmas festival one 



26 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



week night, amid six or eight hundred children roaring 
happy, with candies and oranges and corn balls, and with 
the representation of a star in Christmas greens right 
before me, I said: "Boys, I feel like a morning star/' 
It so happened that that phrase is to be found in a negro 
song, and two days afterwards it appeared over the name 
of a man who said he was "a member of a neighboring 
church/' that I had the previous Sunday night, in my 
pulpit, quoted two or three verses from "Shoo Fly!" 
And moreover, it went on to say that we sang that every 
Sunday in our Sunday school! And as it was supposed 
that "a member of a neighboring church" would not 
lie, grave editorials appeared in the prominent newspa- 
pers deploring the fact that the pulpit should be so dese- 
crated, and that the Sabbath-schools of this country 
seemed to be going to ruin. Some years ago, in the 
New York Independent, I wrote an article denouncing 
the exclusiveness of churches, and making a plea for the 
working classes. In the midst of that article there were 
two ironical sentences, in which I expressed the disgust 
which some people have for anybody that works for a 
living. Some enemy took these two ironical sentences 
and sent them all around the world as my sentiments of 
disgust with the working classes, and a popular maga- 
zine of the country, taking those two ironical sentences 
as a text, went on to say that I preached every Sunday 
with kid gloves and swallow tail coat( !), and that I ought 
to remember that if I ever got to heaven I should have 
to be associated with the working classes, and be with 
the fisherman apostles, and Paul, the tent-maker. To 
this very day, I get letters from all parts of the earth 




THE SHEPHERDS' ADORATION OF THE INFANT JESUS. 

"And when they were come into the house, they saw the young 
child with Mary his mother, and feli down and worshipped him." — 
Matt. 2. 11. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



27 



containing little newspaper scraps, saying, 11 Did you 
really say that? How is it possible you can so hate the 
working classes? How can you make that accord with 
the words of sympathy you have recently been uttering 
in behalf of their sorrows?" A few years ago I preached 
a series of sermons here on good and bad amusements. 
There appeared a sermon as mine, denouncing all amuse- 
ments, representing that all actors, play-actors and ac- 
tresses were dissolute without any exception, and that 
all theatrical places were indecent, and that every man 
who went to a theatre lost his soul, and that it was wrong 
even to go to a zoological garden, and a sin to look at a 
zebra. I never preached one word of the sermon. Every 
word of that sermon was written in a printing office, by 
a man who had never seen me, or seen Brooklyn Taber- 
nacle — every word of it except the text, and that he got 
by sending to another printing office. 

In the State of Maine a religious paper has a letter 
from a clergyman who says that I came into this pulpit 
on Sabbath morning with Indian dress, feathers on my 
head, and scalping-knife in my hand, and that the pul- 
pit was appropriately adorned with arrows, and Indian 
blankets, and buffalo-skins; and the clergyman, in that 
letter, goes on, with tears, to ask, "What is the world 
coming to?" and asks if ecclesiastical authority somehow 
cannot be evoked to stop such an outrage. Why do 
I state these things? To stop them? Oh, no. But 
for public information. I do not want to stop them. 
They make things spicy! Besides that, my enemies do 
more for me than my friends can. I long ago learned 
to harness the falsehood and abuse of the world for 



28 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Christian service. I thought it would be a great priv- 
lege if I could preach the gospel through the secular 
press beyond these two cities/ The secular press of these 
two cities, as a matter of good neighborhood and of home 
news, have more than done me justice; and I thank 
them for it. If they put the gospel as I preach it in 
their reportorial columns, I should be very mean and 
ungrateful if I objected to anything in the editorial col- 
umns. I have felt if this world is ever brought to God 
it will be by the printing press; and while I have for 
many years been allowed the privilege of preaching the 
gospel through the religious press all around the world, 
I want to preach the gospel through the secular press 
beyond these cities, to people who do not go to church 
and who dislike churches. My enemies have given me 
the chance. They have told such monstrous lies about 
this pulpit and about this church that they have made 
all the world curious to know what really is said here. 
They have opened the way before me everywhere, in all 
the cities of this land, so that now the best, the most 
conscientious, and the leading papers of the country 
allow me, week by week, to preach repentance and 
Christ to the people. And first of all, now, I thank the 
secular press of these two cities for their kindness, and 
after that I publicly thank — for I shall never have any 
opportunity of doing so save this — the Boston Herald, 
the Cincinnati Enquirer, the Philadelphia Press, the 
Times of Philadelphia, the Albany Argus, the Inter- 
Ocean of Chicago, the Advance of Chicago, the Courier- 
Journal of Louisville, the Times- Journal of St. Louis, 
the Dispatch of Pittsburg, the Reading Eagle, Pennsyl- 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 29 

vania; the Henrietta Journal, of Texas; the Evangel 
of San Francisco, the Telegraph of St. John, Canada; 
the Guardian of Toronto, Canada; the Christian Her- 
ald of Glasgow, Scotland; the Christian Age of Lon- 
don, the Christian Globe of London, the Oldham 
Chronicle of Manchester, England; the Liverpool Prot- 
estant, the Southern Cross of Melbourne, Australia; 
Town and Country of Sidney, Australia; the Words 
of Grace, of Sidney, Australia, and many others, all 
around the world. 

I want to tell you that when I was called here to 
take this place, while I received the call from nineteen 
people, my enemies now give me the opportunity 
every week of preaching the gospel to between seven 
and eight million souls. They had had the curios- 
ity to see and hear what I would say, and then the 
leading, the honorable newspapers of the country have 
gratified that curiosity. Go on, mine enemies! If you 
can afford it in your soul I can. So God makes the 
wrath of men to praise him, and while I thank my 
friends I also thank my enemies. 

But, while the falsehoods to which I have referred 
may somewhat have stirred your humor, there is a false- 
hood which strikes a different key, for it invades the 
sanctity of my home ; and, when I tell the story, the fair- 
minded men and women and children of the land will 
be indignant, I will read it, so that if any one may 
want to copy it they can afterward. (Reading from 
manuscript.) It has been stated over and over again in 
private circles, and in newspapers hinted, until tens of 
thousands of people have heard the report, that sixteen 



30 



BIOGRPPHICAL. 



or seventeen years ago I went sailing on tne Schuylkill 
river with my wife and her sister (who was my sister-in- 
law) ; that the boat capsized, and that having the oppor- 
tunity of saving either my wife or sister, I let my wife 
drown and saved her sister, I marrying her in sixty 
days! I propose to nail that infamous lie on the fore- 
head of every villain, man or woman, who shall utter it 
again, and to invoke the law to help me. One beautiful 
morning, my own sister by blood relation, Sarah Tal- 
mage Whitenack, and her daughter Mary, being on a 
visit to us in Philadelphia, I proposed that we go to 
Fairmount Park and make it pleasant for them. With 
my wife and my only daughter — she being a little child 
— and my sister Sarah and her daughter, I started for 
Fairmount. Having just moved to Philadelphia, I was 
ignorant of the topography of the suburbs. Passing 
along by the river, I saw a boat and proposed a row. I 
hired the boat and we got in, and not knowing anything 
of the dam across the river, and unwarned by the keeper 
of the boat of any danger, I pulled straight for the brink, 
suspecting nothing until we saw someone wildly waving 
on the shore as though there were danger. I looked 
back, and lo! we were already in the current of the dam. 
With a terror that you cannot imagine I tried to back 
the boat, but in vain. We went over. The boat cap- 
sized. My wife instantly disappeared and was drawn 
under the dam, from which her body was not brought 
until days after; I, not able to swim a stroke, hanging 
on the bottom of the boat, my niece hanging on to me, 
my sister Sarah clinging to the other side of the boat. 
A boat from shore rescued us. After an hour of effort 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



31 



to resuscitate my child, who was nine-tenths dead — and 
I can see her blackened body yet, rolling over the barrel, 
such as is used for restoring the drowned — she breathed 
again. A carriage came up, and leaving my wife in the 
bottom of the Schuylkill river, and with my little girl 
in semi-unconsciousness, and blood issuing from nostril 
and lip, wrapped in a shawl, on my lap, and with my 
sister Sarah and her child in the carriage, we rode to our 
desolated home. Since the world was created a more 
ghastly and agonizing calamity never happened. And 
that is the scene over which some ministers of the gos- 
pel, and men and women pretending to be decent, have 
made sport. 

My present wife was not within a hundred miles 
of the place. So far from being sisters, the two were 
entire strangers. They never heard of each other, 
and not until nine months after the tragedy on the 
Schuylkill did I even know of the existence of my pres- 
ent wife. Nine months after that calamity on the 
Schuylkill, she was introduced to me by my brother, 
her pastor, Rev. Goyn Talmage, now of Paramus, New 
Jersey. My first wife's name was Mary R. Avery, a 
member of the Reformed Church on Harrison street, 
South Brooklyn, where there are many hundreds of 
people who could tell the story. My present wife, I 
say, was not within a hundred miles of the spot. Her 
name was Susie Whittemore, and she was a member of 
the church in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where multitudes 
could tell the story. With multitudes of people on the 
bank of the Schuylkill who witnessed my landing on 
that awful day of calamity, and hundreds of peop e 



32 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



within half an hour's walk of this place who knew, 
Mary A\ery. and hundreds of people in Greenpoint , 
Brooklyn, who knew my present wife, Susie Whitte- 
more— what do you think, husbands and wives, fathers 
and mothers, editors and reporters, of a lie like that 
manufactured out of the whole cloth? I never have 
spoken of this subject before, and I never shall again; 
but I give fair notice that, if any two responsible wit- 
nesses will give me the name of any responsible person 
after this affirming this slander, I will pay the inform- 
ant $100, and I will put upon the criminal vagabond, 
the loathsome and accursed wretch who utters it, the 
full force of the law. 

But while I have thus referred to falsehoods and crit- 
icisms, I want to tell you that in the upturned faces of 
my congregation, and in the sympathy of a church al- 
ways indulgent, and in the perpetual blessing of God, 
my ten years here in Brooklyn, have been a rapture. 
Now r , as to the future — for I am preaching my anniver- 
sary sermon — as to the future, I want to be of more 
service. My ideas of a sermon have all changed. My 
entire theology has condensed into one w^ord, and that 
a word of four letters, and that word is " help." Before 
I select my text, when I come to this pulpit, when I 
rise to preach, the one thought is : How t shall I help the 
people? And this coming year I mean, if God will give 
me his spirit, to help young men. They have an awful 
struggle, and I want to put my arm through their arm 
with a tight grip, such as an older brother has a rightto 
give a younger brother, and I want to help them through. 
Many of them have magnificent promise and hope. I 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



33 



am going to cheer them on up the steps of usefulness 
and honor. God help the young men! I get letters 
every week from somebody in the country, saying: "My 
son has gone to the city ; he is in such a bank, or store, 
or shop. Will you look after him. He was a good boy 
at home, but there are many temptations in the city. 
Pray for him, and counsel him." I want to help the 
old. They begin to feel in the way; they begin to feel 
neglected, perhaps. I want at the edge of the snow- 
bank of old age, to show them the crocus. I want to 
put in their hands the staff and the rod of the gospel. 
Gocl bless your gray hairs T want to help these wives 
and mothers in the struggle of housekeeping, and in the 
training of their children for God and for heaven. I 
want to preach a gospel as appropriate to Martha as to 
Mary. God help the martyrs of the kitchen, and the 
martyrs of the drawing-room, and the martyrs of the 
nursery, and the martyrs of the sewing-machine. I 
want to help merchants; whether the times are good or 
bad, they have a struggle. I want to preach a sermon 
that will last them all the week; when they have notes 
to pay and no money to pay them with; when they are 
abused and assaulted. I want to give them a gospel as 
appropriate for Wall street, and Broadway, and Chest- 
nut street, and State street, as for the communion table 
I want to help dissipated men who are trying to reform. 
Instead of coming to them with a -patronizing air that 
seems to say, " How high I am up, and how low you are 
down," I want to come to them with a manner which 
seems to say, " If I had been in the same kind of temp- 
tation I should have done worse." I have more interest 



34 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



in the lost sheep that bleats on the mountain than in the 
ninety-nine sheep asleep in the fold. I want to help the 
bereft. Oh! they are all around us. It seems as if the 
cry of orphanage and childlessness and widowhood would 
never end. Only last Wednesday we carried out a beau- 
tiful girl of twenty years. Fond parents could not cure 
her. Doctors could not cure her. Oceanic voyage to 
Europe could not cure her. She went out over that 
road over which so many of your loved ones have gone. 
Oh! we want comfort. This is a world of graves. God 
makes me the sun of consolation to the troubled. Help 
for one. Help for all. Help now. While this moment 
the sun rides mid heaven, may the eternal noon of God's 
pardon and comfort flood your soul. 

I was reading this morning, that when Richard Baxter 
was preaching on a certain occasion in England, the 
shock of arms was heard in the distance. Twenty-five 
thousand men were in combat, but he went on preach- 
ing, and the audience sat and listened though they knew 
that a great conflict was raging. While I preach this 
morning, I know there is a mightier contest — all heaven 
and hell in battle array, contending for the mastery of 
your immortal spirit. Who shall have it? 

The multiplicity, large results and striking progress 
of the labors of Dr. Talmage have made the foregoing 
more of a brief narrative of the epochs of his career 
than an account of the career itself. It has had to be 
so. Lack of space requires it. His work has had rather 
to be intimated in generalities than told in details. The 
filling in must come either from the knowledge of the 
reader or from intelligent inferences and conclusions 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



35 



drawn from the few principal facts stated, and stated 
with care. This remains to be said : No other preacher 
addressed so many constantly. The words of no other 
preacher were ever before carried by so many papers or 
carried so far. Papers gave him three continents for a 
church, and the English-speaking world for a congre- 
gation. The judgment of his generation will of course be 
divided upon him just as that of the next will not. 
That he was a topic in every newspaper is much more sig- 
nificant than the fact of what treatment it gave him. 
Only men of genius are universally commented on. The 
universality of the comment makes friends and foes 
alike prove the fact of the genius. That is what is im- 
pressive. As for the quality of the comment, it will, in 
nine cases out of ten, be more of a revelation of the 
character behind the pen writing it than a true view 
or review of the man. This is necessarily so. The press 
and the pulpit in the main are defective judges of one 
another. The former rarely enters the inside of the lat- 
ter 's work. There is acquaintanceship, but not intimacy 
between them. Journals find out the fact of a preacher 's 
power in time Then they go looking for the causes. 
Long before, however, the masses have felt the causes 
and have realized, not merely discovered, the fact. The 
penalty of being the leaders of great masses has, from 
Whitefield and Wesley to Spurgeon and Talmage, been 
to serve as the target for small wits. A constant source 
of attack on men of such magnitude always has been 
and will be the presses, which, by the common consent 
of mankind, are described and dispensed from all con- 
sideration, when they are rated Satanic. Their attacks 



36 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



confirm a man's right to respect and reputation, and are 
a proof of his influence and greatness. It can be truly 
said that while secular criticism in the United States 
favorably regards our subject in proportion to its intel- 
ligence and uprightness, the judgment of foreigners on 
him has long been an index to the judgment of poster- 
ity here. No other American was read so much and so 
constantly abroad. Dr. Talmage's extraordinary imagi- 
nation, earnestness, descriptive powers and humor, his 
great art in grouping and arrangement, his wonderful 
mastery of words to illuminate and alleviate human con- 
ditions and to interpret and inspire the harmonies of the 
better nature was appreciated by all who can put them- 
selves in sympathy with his originality of methods and 
his high consecration of purpose. His manner mated 
with Ms nature. It is each sermon in action. He pres- 
sed the eyes, hands, his entire body, into the service of 
the illustrative truth. Gestures were the accompani- 
ment of what he said. As he stood out before the im- 
mense throng, without a scrap of notes or manuscript 
before him, the effect produced could not be understood 
by those who have never seen it. The solemnity, the 
tears, the awful hush, as though the audience could not 
breathe again, were ofttimes painful. 

His voice was peculiar, not musical, but productive of 
startlingly, strong effects, such as characterized no 
preacher on either side of the Atlantic. His power to 
grapple an audience and master it from text to peroration 
had no equal. No man was ever less self-conscious in his 
work. He felt a mission of evangelization on him as by 
the imposition of the Supreme. That mission he responded 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



37 



to by doing the duty that was nearest to him with all 
his might — as confident that he was under the care and 
order of a Divine Master as those who heard him were 
that they were under the spell of the greatest prose-poet 
that ever made the gospel his song and the redemption 
of the race the passion of his heart. 

Dr. Talmage was probably the best known clergyman 
on earth. His name was as familiar as a household word 
in hundreds of thousands of homes in America, England 
and her colonies, and his words, spoken and printed 
reached millions every week. 

In addition to his labors as preacher and popular 
lecturer, Dr. Talmage was a most voluminous writer. 
A constant writer for the newspapers, a steady contri- 
butor to the magazines, he still found time to write 
many books. 

He published during his busy Brooklyn pastorate as 
many as fourteen volumes besides several volumes 
of collected sermons and a number of lectures and 
addresses. 

Dr. Talmage was looked upon by many as having been 
too sensational in his methods, but no one ever doubted 
his power with men, his ability to draw mighty audiences 
wherever and whenever he was announced to preach 
or lecture 

His was a name to conjure with, and in the day of his 
power he was easily the king of the American platform. 

Those who derided his methods went still to hear him 
and hearing him they had to confess his marvelous 
gift of speech and his wonderful personal magnetism. 

Soon after President McKinley's first election Dr. 



38 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Talmage visited Canton, Ohio, and astonished the 
natives and the garrison of newspaper men one day by 
appearing in the throng of office seekers who crowded 
North Market street after every train arrival. He was 
asked the usual questions by reporters after he had 
had an interview with the President: "What is your 
mission here? Have you any candidacy to urge? 
Are you an office-seeker?' ' 

"I have nothing whatever to clo with politics," 
declared Dr. Talmage, with a broad smile. "But I 
am a Presbyterian, and I thought that perhaps Mr. 
McKinley, being of Scottish descent, was also a Pres- 
byterian. But it turns out that he is a Methodist. 
He is, however, a conscientious man and I admire him 
and hope to have the opportunity of preaching to him 
sometimes." 

McKinley laughed heartily when he heard that Dr. 
Talmage had spoken somewhat mournfully of his non- 
ancestral church allegiance. 

"Why doesn't Talmage turn Methodist?" Pres- 
ident McKinley asked, with a chuckle. "He might 
get me then, although my friend, Dr. Manchester, has 
first call. The change would make a good deal of dif- 
ference to me, but surely it wouldn't make much to 
Dr. Talmage, who is, I understand, an exceedingly inde- 
pendent Presbyterian — almost a Congregationalist — a 
Talmage Congregationalist . ' ' 

Dr. Talmage's zeal for the loaves and fishes of this 
world irritated one of his friends, Major Pond, to the 
point of angry alienation; it fretted many who said that 
they "did not like to see it in the Doctor," and led to 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



39 



an amusing contretemps which would have been fatal 
to the reputation of any one but Talmage. 

In the fall of 1889, Dr. Tannage's second tabernacle 
was destroyed by fire. The doctor was on the point 
of starting for Palestine and the East. He announced 
that he would give up the tour. The trustees and the 
congregation would not listen to this suggestion, espe- 
cially as it was evident that, owing to good busines- 
management, the disaster would only be of a temporary 
character. Dr. Talmage on this tour visited Athens 
and the Holy Land, and the newspapers published 
what were called " reports" of his discourses deliv- 
ered at various places of historic and Christian in- 
terest. It was commonly rumored in the newspaper 
offices that advance copies of all the sermons had been 
deposited (for a stipulated consideration) with each 
managing editor before Dr. Talmage left this country. 
Some newspapers which make up their Sunday sup- 
plements early in the week published glowing accounts 
of Dr. Talmage's sermon at Mars Hill, Athens, de- 
livered to an enthusiastic congregation. Comment 
on what was called by some "Dr. Talmage's audac- 
ity" in forcing a comparison between himself and the 
original Mars Hill preacher who was none other than 
the apostle Paul, was lost in the louder comment, 
mingled with laughter, which followed the announce- 
ment that the Mars Hill sermon (with the vivid de- 
scription of the congregation and how the sermon had 
been received by it) had been published, by some over- 
sight or remissness in watching the cables, before Dr. 
Talmage had landed at the Piraeus, which, as every 




40 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



school boy knows, is the seaport of Athens. The daily 
newspapers did not say much about the apparently 
prophetic nature of the report of Talmage's sermon on 
Mars Hill, but some of the sectarian organs took the 
matter up, and recalled the fact that once upon a time 
Dr. Talmage had to stand the ordeal of a Presbyterian 
trial, on an accusation which was an uglier one to bring 
against a clergyman than is merely the charge of heresy, 
for it involved accusations of the practises that in the 
secular business world are called "too smart." Cer- 
tain it is, that Dr. Talmage was a wide awake business 
man, but his integrity was never impugned success- 
fully and his immediate supporters, among whom were 
some well-known Wall street men, regarded his enter- 
prise with lenient eyes. 

The most severe thing that was ever said of him was 
that he was a kind of clerical Russell Sage. As Dr. 
Talmage would have had a bad time explaining the 
Mars Hill prophetical publication to the religious ed- 
itors, who, as a matter of fact, had been badly scooped 
by the secular press, he acted with his usual admir- 
able discretion in such emergencies and, by taking no 
notice of it, "either one way or another/' allowed the 
matter to drop. By the time he returned home, to be 
eloquently interviewed as to his marvelous trip, it was 
cold and forgotten. 

During the time of the earlier heresy discussions in 
New York, a reporter asked Dr. Talmage how much 
of the Bible he really believed, that is to say, believed 
verbally and literally. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



41 



"All of it," said Talmage, "from cover to cover. 
There is a real heaven and a physical hell, and the pain- 
ful anxiety of some fellows to modify the biblical hell 
or to do away with it altogether won't have any effect 
on their destinies." 

"What destinies?" asked the reporter, in order to 
hear what Dr. Talmage would say. 

"Why their eternal destinies. Do you think that 
changing a creed or giving new interpretations to the 
Bible will really enable anybody to dodge the 
devil?" 

Dr. Talmage 's methods on the sermon platform — 
he never, in his own church, preached from a pulpit — 
were sensational, surprising, and novel. On one mem- 
orable Sunday morning, when the time came for him 
to deliver his sermon, he walked to the extreme edge 
on one side of his great fifty-foot platform, faced about 
and suddenly started as fast as he could jump for the 
opposite side. His ample coat-tails flew out behind 
him. His long arms threshed the air like windmill 
sails. His trousers were away above his ankles, and 
his legs worked like the crank of a steamer's walking 
beam. The congregation sat breathless, expecting to 
see him pitch headlong from the farther side of the 
platform. But he stopped with a violent jerk, leaped 
suddenly into the air, and came down on the resound- 
ing platform with a crash, shouting : 

"Young man, you're rushing toward a precipice." 

Then he proceeded to deliver what even the extremely 
unfriendly newspaper critic who first reported the 
jumping incident was compelled to describe as a "rat- 



42 



BIOGRPPHICAL. 



tling good sermon' 'on the sins and temptations of youth 
in a big city. 

Talmage possessed a great degree of personal mag- 
netism and could influence many of his hearers to an ex- 
traordinary degree. It was not uncommon for a faint- 
ing woman to be carried from among his audience, over- 
come, not by the heat of the hall or church, but 
by the tremendous impression produced by the 
orator. 

Although the English public, wlio wanted to hear 
him preach, did not take kindly to Dr. Talmage as a 
mere lecturer, yet in his own country several of his 
lectures were highly popular. There was one lecture 
in particular, entitled "The Bright Side of Things," 
which never failed to attract large audiences. 

"It is my favorite topic, and I suppose that is why/' 
said Dr. Talmage when asked about it. "I have tried 
all m)^ life to see the bright side of things, and if every- 
body else would make the attempt it would be a brighter 
and a happier world." 

Dr. Talmage, who never did anything by halves, 
managed, as editor of the Christian Herald, to raise 
$35,000 for the relief of the districts of Russia that 
were famine-stricken in 1892. The steamship Leo 
was chartered and Dr. Talmage became his own super- 
cargo and sailed to St. Petersburg with a shipload of 
flour. The Czar, the Czarina, and the entire imperial 
family welcomed Talmage, and the Czar talked with 
him for a long time on religious, social, and political 
questions. What most struck Dr. Talmage and what 
he commented on most frequently when talking of ^ his 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



43 



meeting with the Czar was that the bomb-threatened 
autocrat seemed to be entirely without fear. 

" Perhaps he is used to the thought of being assas- 
sinated/' suggested one of Dr. Talmage's friends. 

"Ah, no," said the preacher. "But he is ready, and 
when a man is always ready to die, why should he be 
afraid of the form in which death may come? A finer, 
nobler fellow than the Czar of Russia I never met. We 
chatted for a long time on religious, social, and political 
questions." 

The Czar was undoubtedly of the opinion, from the 
circumstances of Dr. Talmage ? s visit, as well as from 
the newspaper publicity bestowed on the preacher, that 
Dr. Talmage stood high in the councils of the American 
nation. 



Talmage 's stern and inflexible Calvinistic orthodoxy, 
sharply contrasted as it was with his unusual and novel 
personal pulpit style, won for him hosts of adherents 
throughout the English-speaking world among the 
readers of his sermons. In relating his own early ex- 
periences, Dr. Talmage used to say that one of his 
earliest friends was won to him by his " uncompromising 
orthodoxy." After he had preached his first sermon at 
his first charge, at Belleville, N. J., an old Scotsman 
named MacMillan called on him and said : 

"I come to welcome you as a minister of the new 
covenant. What catechism do you study?" 

" Westminster," replied Talmage. 

"Praise God for that," said the Scotsman. "I think 
you must belong to the good old orthodox out-and-out 



44 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Calvinistic school. I would not like to suggest, but if 
perfectly convenient, give us next Sunday a solid ser- 
mon about the eternal decrees. Good-night. I must 
sing a Psalm of David with the children before they go 
to bed." 

Talmage at this early period of his career suffered 
from bashfulness, or stage fright, which caused him 
great embarrassment. He had no sooner announced 
the text of his first Belleville sermon than he let his 
manuscript fall, and put in a few awkward moments 
fumbling for it, to the undisguised amusement of the 
MacMillan, who was of the regular kailyaird type, and 
did not believe that discourses should be read, but held 
they should be committed to memory or delivered off- 
hand. At the close of the sermon, however, MacMillan 
was won over. He went up to Dr. Talmage and said: 
" Young man, that is the right doctrine that you preach. 
It is the same that Mr. Duncan taught me forty years 
ago at the kirk in the glen." And in truth, as far as 
doctrine was concerned, all of Talmage 's sermons were 
orthodox enough to have satisfied the " bluest' ' Coven- 
anter who ever made his vows by the shorter catechism 
and execrated "the liturgy, the deevil, and "all his works." 

One day some friends were talking about Ingersoll. 
"He is doing a great deal of harm to the church," said 
the spokesman. The others, all excepting Talmage, 
assented. "He is keeping many young men from join- 
ing the church." Again there were expressions of assent 
from every one but Talmage. "If he goes on like this 
he will empty the churches, and then what will the 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



45 



ministers do?" This was- more than Talmage could 
stand. 

" Empty the churches," he exclaimed. "Why, he'll 
fill them. If any thinking man wants to get into a 
frame of mind that will drive him back to the comfort 
and the shelter of religion, of the church, all he needs to 
do is to take a course of what they are beginning to call 
Ingersollism. Ingersoll is supposed to be the devil's 
chief recruiting agent on earth, but he is nothing of the 
kind. People only go to hear him in order to be enter- 
tained and amused. Ingersoll is only a wit. He is 
merely a cheap scoffer. He doesn't do any harm to 
religion. I repeat, he is populating the churches in- 
stead of depopulating them. It's easy enough to laugh. 
A man can laugh at his grandmother. Ingersoll 'at- 
tacking' the Bible is like a green grasshopper chirping 
and sawing away on a railway track, denouncing the 
steam engine, when the express comes thundering along. 
The grasshopper can't stay the express, and Ingersoll 
can't stop the truth. He can't even de-rail it" 

The philosophy with which Talmage accepted the 
destruction of his first Tabernacle was for a long time a 
subject of comment in Brooklyn, and was recalled and 
rehashed with a purpose to which the honest doctor 
could not be blind, at each successive fire. The fire first 
broke out on a Sunday morning, so the entire congre- 
gation saw the burning of the church, and there was a 
great deal of weeping and loud lamenting, and before 
the arrival of Talmage many exclamations of "Oh, poor 
Mr. Talmage! What will Mr. Talmage say?" 



46 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



When Talmage arrived there was not much left of 
the Tabernacle but ashes. He stood for a minute or so, 
gazing at the clouds of smoke and steam arising from 
the ruins and filling the sky. No one dared to offer 
consolation, or to speak before the man who was re- 
garded as the chief mourner. 

"Well," said Mr. Talmage, at last, "that building 
never was big enough. Now that it's out of the way, 
we must set about the work of building a larger Taber- 
nacle — and I have no doubt that the people of the 
United States will help us." 

Talmage had not miscalculated or undervalued the 
advertising effect of the fire. The publication of the 
news of the fire brought not only thousands of letters of 
sympathy, but all kinds of offers of pecuniary assist- 
ance, and almost before the ashes of the first Tabernacle 
were cold plans were made for erecting the largest 
Protestant church in America. 

Dr. Talmage frequently made the remark: "I would 
have made a fine newspaper man, wouldn't I? Don't 
you think that there was a good reporter and corre- 
spondent lost in me?" When Colonel Cockerill was 
president of the New York Press club he once heard 
Dr. Talmage asking these questions, and said: 

"Why, doctor, I would give you a job right away, 
even now, but I'm afraid that some of us might go broke 
on blue pencils." 

This statement puzzled Talmage until he learned what 
it meant, and ever after, when any newspaper published 
only fragments of his sermons or addresses, he would 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



47 



say: "I was blue penciled to death in the Daily So- 
and-So." 

When the rebuilding of the Tabernacle was under 
consideration, and ways and means of raising money 
were being discussed, Dr. Talmage wrote to several rich 
men who had lost relatives by death, and made the pro- 
posal that in exchange for a gift of $100,000 the new 
church should be named the So-and-So Memorial church. 
The publication of this proposal attracted a great deal 
of adverse criticism. There was at the same time a 
great deal of talk about the laggard state of subscrip- 
tions to the Grant monument. 

"My way is the best way," said Talmage, seizing the 
occasion aptly, and turning aside criticism with his 
usual skill. "If they had started a Grant Memorial 
church or cathedral, the money would have been all sub- 
scribed long ago/' and he was right. But the feelings 
of his parishioners were spared, and money was obtained 
without having to saddle the Tabernacle with the names 
of the departed relatives cf millionaires. 



"What's the size of your congregation, doctor?" 
asked an Englishman who met Dr. Talmage in the East. 
"M-m, let's see — it must be pretty nearly sixty million 
by this time, I guess," said Talmage. The Englishman, 
who knew nothing about the sermon syndicate, had a 
bad quarter of an hour's mental wrestling, and then 
said, timidly: 

"But, my dear doctor, the seating capacity of your 
church is not more than a few thousand?" 



48 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



"Oh, pshaw/' said Dr. Talmage, "I daresay that 
many of the people to whom I preach never see the 
inside of a church door." 

The Englishman was more bewildered than ever until 
Dr. Talmage gently explained to him that the vast 
majority of his congregation was made up of newspaper 
readers. 

Dr. Talmage appreciated keenly his own drawing 
power as a preacher. He was not troubled with mock 
modesty or any other kind, and another reminiscence 
that he was fond of dwelling on when exchanging old- 
time stories with his friends, was the manner in which 
he drummed up a congregation for the Tabernacle of 
1870. 

"I chose," he said, "the text 'compel them to come 
in/ and I preached with all my force on the subject of 
recruiting for the congregation and gathering in enough 
worshipers to fill this new and splendid edifice, with its 
3,000 seating capacity. I know that I preached an 
energetic sermon, and I heard from it so fast that the 
next Sunday the Tabernacle was crowded, and the 
second Sunday following the overcrowding was so great 
that I would almost have preached from the text, 
'Compel some of them to stay out/ but I thank God, 
there is no such text in the Bible." 

Once it was asserted, in one of the periodical public 
attacks on Talmage, that he had ceased the study of 
law and had become a minister merely because "the life 
was easier and there was more money in hi" 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



49 



"The life is harder and there is less money in it," 
commented Dr Talmage. "I never in my youth had 
the slightest intention of entering the ministry. But, 
one day, when I was a budding lawyer, I attended a 
revival service. The preacher said that, under the law, 
we were dead in trespasses and sins. My little insight 
into law practice" — and here Talmage 's eyes would 
twinkle — "had taught me too much about the law to 
enable me to combat the statement successfully. When 
I went home there began the most terrible scrimmage 
between the law and the gospel that was ever fought, 
and, the first thing I knew, the gospel had won, and I 
bade good-by to the law and, instead of being a hum- 
drum dead lawyer, I am, my friends tell me, a live 
preacher. But it is not generally known that I represent 
in my one personality both the conflicting elements, 
the law and the gospel." 

Here is another story which Dr. Talmage used to tell 
on himself: "When I was called to Belleville, N. J., 
my first ministerial charge, I was young and enthu- 
siastic, and I had great ideas about the tremendous im- 
portance of my work — not that it was unimportant, 
but, perhaps, I was inclined to overrate the weight of 
the young minister as a factor in the community. When 
I went to my new charge, with my wife, I was met at 
the station by a big delegation of my parishioners. What 
I would say in reply to the expected address of welcome 
had been weighing heavily on my mind. I had heard 
of other ministers' experiences with the good people of 
cultured but rural communities, and I was prepared to 



50 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



listen to a twenty-minute or half-hour oration from the 
leading man of the congregation. The members of the 
committee of welcome were there, as I had expected, 
and when I was introduced to good old Mr. Bromlette 
I was sure from his manner, that he was the man with 
the speech. T put myself into an attitude of attentive 
waiting. The parishioners stood around in an expectant 
hush. My wife was nervous, and was clinging to my 
arm. At last Mr. Bromlette spoke. He took off his 
silk hat, rubbed the nap with his coat sleeve, and re- 
marked, 'Hot night, dominie/ 

"'Yes/ said I, intensely relieved, but wanting so 
badly to laugh that I could hardly speak. 'Yes, indeed. 
It is most oppressively warm/ 

"That is probably the shortest address of welcome 
and reply on record, excepting in the Kailyaird story of 
the bashful Scottish provost to whom was presented a 
watch. When the critical moment came the spokesman 
chosen to make the presentation said, 'Provost, here's 
the watch/ and the provost replied, 'Aye, man, Wullie, 
and is that the watch?' " 

The following discourses were taken down by steno- 
graphic reporters and revised by Mr. Talmage specially 
for this work. On the occasion of their delivery the 
church was thronged beyond description, the streets 
around blockaded with people so that carriages could 
not pass, Mr. Talmage himself gaining admission only 
hy the help of the police : 



CHAPTEE I. 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OP VICE. 

" When said he unto me, Son of man, dig now in the wall ; and 
when I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And he said unto 
pie, Go in and behold the wicked abominations that they do here. So I 
went in and saw ; and behold every form of creeping things and 
cbominable beasts." — Ezekiel, viii: 8, 9, 10. 

So this minister of religion, Ezekiel, was commanded 
io the exploration of the sin of his day. He was not to 
(stand outside the door guessing what it was, but was to 
go in and see for himself. He did not in vision say: 
" O Lord, I don't wan't to go in ; I dare not go in ; if I 
go in I might be criticised ; O Lord, please let me off ?" 
When God told Ezekiel to go in he went in, " and saw, 
and behold all manner of creeping things and abomin- 
able beasts." I, as a minister of religion, felt I had a 
Divine commission to explore the iniquities of our 
cities. I did not ask counsel of my session, or my Pres- 
bytery, or of the newspapers, but asking the companion, 
ship of three prominent police officials and two of the 
elders of my church, I unrolled my commission, and 
it said : " Son of man, dig into the wall ; and when I 
had digged . \to the wall, behold a door ; and he said, 
Go in and see the wicked abominations that are done 
here ; and I went in, and saw, and behold !" Brought 
up in the country and surrounded by much parental 
care, I had not until this autumn seen the haunts of 
iniquity. By the grace of God defended, I had never 



sowed any " wild oats." I had somehow been aole ta 
tell from various sources something about the iniquities 
of the great cities, and to preach against them ; but I 
saw, in the destruction of a great multitude of the peo. 
pie, that there must be an infatuation and a temptation 
that had never been spoken about, and I said, " I will 
explore." I saw tens of thousands of men going down, 
and if there had been a spiritual percussion answering to 
the physical percussion, the whole air would have been 
full of the rumble, and roar, and crack, and thunder of 
the demolition , and this moment, if we should pause in 
our service, we should hear the crash, crash ! Just as in 
the sickly season you sometimes hear the bell at the gate 
of the cemetery ringing almost incessantly, so I found 
that the bell at the gate of the cemetery where lost soula 
are buried was tolling by day and tolling by night. I 
said, " I will explore." I went as a physician goes into 
a small-pox hospital, or a fever lazzaretto, to see what 
practical and useful information I might get. That 
would be a foolish doctor who would stand outside the 
door of an invalid writing a Latin prescription. When 
the lecturer in a medical college is done with his lecture 
he takes the students into the dissecting room, and he 
shows them the reality. I am here this morning to report 
a plague, and to tell you how sin dissects the body, and 
dissects the mind, and dissects the soul. " Oh !" say 
you, " are you not afraid that in consequence of your 
exploration of the inquities of the city other persons 
may make exploration, and do themselves damage ?" I 
reply: "If, in company with the Commissioner of 
Police, and the Captain of Police, and the Inspector of 
Police, and the company of two Christian gentlemen, 
and not with the spirit of curiosity, but that 3^011 may 
^ee sin in order the better to combat it, then, in the name 



A PEESONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE 



of the eternal God, go ? But, if not, then stay away. 
Wellington, standing in the battle of Waterloo when 
the bullets were buzzing around his head, saw a civilian 
on the field. He said to him, " Sir, what are you 
doing here ? Be off ?" " Why," replied the civilian, 
u there is no more danger here for me than there is for 
you." Then Wellington flushed up and said, " God and 
my country demand that I be here, but you have no 
errand here." Now I, as an officer in the army of Jesus 
Christ, went on this exploration, and on to this battle- 
field. If you bear a like commission, go ; if not, 
stay away. But you say, " Don't you think that some- 
how your description of these places will induce people 
to go and see for themselves ?" I answer, yes, just as 
much as the description of the yellow fever at Grenada 
would induce people to go down there and get the pesti- 
lence. It was told us there were hardly enough people 
alive to bury the dead, and I am going to tell you a 
story in these Sabbath morning sermons of places where 
they are all dead or dying. And I shall not gild iniqui- 
ties. I shall play a dirge and not an anthem, and while 
I shall not put faintest blush on fairest cheek, I will 
kindle the cheeks of many a man into a conflagration, 
and I will make his ears tingle. But you say, " Don't 
you know that the papers are criticising you for the 
position you take?" I say, yes ; and do you know how 
I feel about it ! There is no man who is more indebted 
to the newspaper press than I am. My business is to 
preach the truth, and the wider the audience the news- 
paper press gives me, the wider my field is. As the 
secular and religious press of the United States and the 
Canadas, and of England and Ireland and Scotland and 
Australia and New Zealand, are giving me every week 
nearly three million souls for an audience, I say I am 



32 A PEBS0NAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VIC*. 



indebted to the press, anyhow. Go on ! To the day of 
my death I cannot pay them what I owe them. So slash 
away, gentlemen. The more the merrier. If there is 
anything I despise, it is a dull time. Brisk criticism is 
a coarse Turkish towel, with which every public man 
needs every day to be rubbed down, in order to keep 
healthful circulation. Give my love to all the secular 
and religious editors, and full permission to run their 
steel pens clear through my sermons, from introductioi) 
to application. 

It was ten o'clock of a calm, clear, star-lighted night 
when the carriage rolled with us from the bright part oi 
the city down into the region where gambling and crime 
and death hold high carnival. When I speak of houses 
of dissipation, I do not refer to one sin, or five sins, but 
to all sins. As the horses halted, and, escorted by the 
officers of the law, we went in, we moved into a world 
of which we were as practically ignorant as though it 
had swung as far off from us as Mercury is from Saturn. 
No shout of revelry, no guffaw of laughter, but compar- 
ative silence. Not many signs of death, but the dead 
were there. As I moved through this place I said, 
"This is the home of los' souls. " It was a Dante's 
Inferno; nothing to stir the mirth, but many things to 
fill the oyes with tears of pity. Ah ! there were moral 
corpses. There were corpses on the stairway, 
corpses in the gallery, corpses in the gardens. Leper 
met leper, but no bandage"! mouth kept back the 
breath, I felt that I was sitting on the iron coast against 
which Euroclydon had driven a hundred dismasted 
hulks — every moment more blackened hulks rolling m. 
And while I stood and waited for the going down of the 
storm and the lull of the sea, I bethought myself, this 
is an everlasting storm, and these billows always ragec 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATTON itf HAUNTS OP VICE. 33 

Mid on each carcass that strewed the beach already had 
alighted a vulture — the long-beaked, filthy vulture of 
unending dispair — now picking into the corruption, and 
now on the black wing wiping the blood of a soul ! No- 
lark, no robin, no chaffinch, but vultures, vultures, vul- 
tures. I was reading of an incident that occurred in 
Pennsylvania a few weeks ago, where a naturalist had 
presented to him a deadly serpent, and he put it in a 
bottle and stood it in his studio, and one evening, 
while in the studio with his daughter, a bat flew in the 
w'ndow, extinguished the light, struck the bottle con-, 
taining the deadly serpent, and in a few moments there 
was a shriek from the daughter, and in a few hours she 
was dead. She had been bitten of the serpent. Amid 
these haunts of death, in that midnight exploration I 
saw that there were lions and eagles and doves for in- 
signia; but I thought to myself how inappropriate. 
Better the insignia of an adder and a bat. 

First of all, I have to report as a result of this mid- 
night exploration that all the sacred rhetoric about the 
costly magnificence of the haunts of iniquity is apocry- 
phal. We were shown what was called the costliest and 
most magnificent specimen. I had often heard that the 
walls were adorned with masterpieces; that the fountains 
were bewitching in the gaslight; that the music was like" 
the touch of a Thalbergor a Gottschalk; that the uphol* 
stery was imperial; that the furniture in some places 
was like the throne-room of the Tuilleries. It is all false. 
Masterpieces! There was not a painting worth $5, leav- 
ing aside the frame. Great daubs of color that no 
intelligent mechanic would put on his wall. A cross- 
breed between a chromo and a splash of poor paint! 
Music! Some of the homeliest creatures I ever saw 
Squawked discord, accompanied by pianos out of tune! 



34 4. PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. 



Upholstery! Two characteristics; red and cheap. You 
have heard so much about the wonderful lights — blue 
and green and yellow and orange flashing across the 
dancers and the gay groups. Seventy-five cents' worth 
of chemicals would produce all that in one night. Tinsel 
gewgaws, tawdriness frippery, seemingly much of it 
bought at a second-hand furniture store and never paid 
for! For the most part the inhabitants were repulsive. 
Here and there a soul on whom God had put the crown 
of beauty, but nothing comparable with the Christian 
loveliness and purity which you may see any pleasant 
afternoon on any of the thoroughfares of our great cities, 
Young man, you are a stark fool if you go to places oi 
dissipation to see pictures, and hear music, and admire 
beautiful and gracious countenances. From Thomas's, or 
Dodworth's, or Gilmore's Band, in ten minutes you will 
hear more harmony than in a whole year of the racket 
and bang of the cheap orchestras of the dissolute. Come 
to me, and I will give you a letter of introduction to 
any one of five hundred homes in Brooklyn and New 
York, where you will see finer pictures and hear more 
beautiful music— music and pictures compared with which 
there is nothing worth speaking of in houses of dissi- 
pation. Sin, however pretentious, is almost always poor. 
Mirrors, divans, Chickering grand she cannot keep. The 
sheriff is after it with uplifted mallet, ready for the ven- 
due. " Going ! going ! gone ! 

But, my friends, I noticed in all the haunts of dissi- 
pation that there was an attempt at music, however poor. 
The door swung open and shut to music; they stepped to 
music; they danced to music; they attempted nothing 
without music, and I said to myself, " If such inferior 
music has such power, and drum, and fife, and orchestra 
are enlisted in the service of the devil, what multipotent 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. $5 

power there must be in music ! and is it not high time 
that in all our churches and reform associations we 
tested how much charm there is in it to bring men 
off the wrong road to the right road?" Fifty times that 
night I said within myself, " If poor music is so power- 
ful in a bad direction, why cannot good music be almost 
omnipotent in a good direction?" Oh! my friends, we 
want to drive men into the kingdom of God with a mus- 
ical staff. We want to shut off the path of death with 
a musical bar. We want to snatch all the musical instru- 
ments from the service of the devil, and with organ, and 
cornet, and base viol, and piano and orchestra praise the 
Lord. Good Richard Cecil when seated in the pulpit, 
said that when Doctor Wargan was at the organ, he, Mr. 
Cecil, was so overpowered with the music that he found 
himself looking for the first chapter of Isaiah in the 
prayer hook, wondering he could not find it. Oh! holy 
bewilderment. Let us send such men as Phillip Phillips, 
the Christian vocalist, all around the world, and 
Arbuckle, the cornest, with his " Robin Adair " set to 
Christian melody, and George Morgan with his Hallelu- 
ah Chorus, and ten thousand Christian men with up- 
lifted hosannas to capture this whole earth for God. Oh! 
my friends, we have had enough minor strains in the 
church; give us major strains. We have had enough 
dead marches in the church; play us those tunes which 
are played when an army is on a dead run to overtake an 
enemy. Give us the double-quick. We are in full 
gallop of cavalry charge. Forward, the whole line! 
Many a man who is unmoved by Christian argument 
surrenders to a Christian song. 

Many a man under the power of Christian music has 
had a change take place in his soul and in his life equal 
to that which took place in the life of a man in Scot- 



36 A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. 



land, who for fifteen years had been a drunkard. Com- 
ing home late at night, as he touched the doorsill, his 
wife trembled at his coming. Telling the story after- 
ward, she said, "I didn't dare go to bed lest he violently 
drag me forth. When he came home there was only 
about the half inch of the candle left in the socket. 
When he entered, he said, 'Where are the children V 
and I said 'they are up stairs in bed.' He said, 'Go 
and fetch them,' and I went up and knelt down and J 
prayed God to defend me and my children from their 
cruel father. And then I brought them down. Ho 
took up the eldest in his arms and kissed her and said, 
'My dear lass, the Lord hath sent thee home a father to- 
night.' And so he did with the second, and then ho 
took up the third of the children and said, 'My dear boy,, 
the Lord hath sent thee home a father to-night.' And 
then he took up the babe and said, 'My darling babe, the 
Lord hath sent thee home a father to-night.' And then 
he put his arm around me and kissed me, and said, 'My 
dear lass, the Lord hath sent thee home a husband 
to-night.' Why, sir, I had na' heard anything like that 
for fourteen years. And he prayed and he was com- 
forted, and my soul was restored, for I didn't live as I 
ought to have lived, close to God. Mv trouble had 
broken me down." Oh ! for such a transformation in 
some of the homes of Brooklyn to-day. By holy con- 
spiracy, in the last song of the morning, let us sweep 
every prodigal into the kingdom of our God. Oh ! ye 
chanters above Bethlehem, come and hover this morning 
and give us a snatch of the old tune about "good will to 
men." 

But I have also, to report of that midnight ex- 
ploration, that I saw something that amazed me more 
than I can tell. I do not want to tell it, for it will 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. 37 

Ifcake pain to many hearts far away, and I cannot comfort 
them. But I must tell it. In all these haunts of 
iniquity I found young men with the ruddy color of 
country health on their cheek, evidently just come to 
town for business, entering stores, and shops, and offices. 
They had helped gather the summer grain. There they 
were in haunts of iniquity, the look on their cheek which 
is never on the cheek except when there has been hard 
work on the farm and in the open air. Here were these 
young men who had heard how gayly a boat dances on 
the edge of a maelstrom, and they were venturing. O 
God! will a few weeks do such an awful work for a 
young man? O Lord! hast thou forgotten what trans- 
pired when they knelt at the family altar that morning 
when he came away, and how father's voice trembled in 
the prayer, and mother and sister sobbed as they lay on 
the floor? I saw that young man when he first con- 
fronted evil. I saw it was the first night there. I saw 
on him a defiant look, as much as to say, "I am mightier 
than sin." Then I saw him consult with iniquity. 
Then I saw him waver and doubt. Then I saw going 
over his countenance the shadow of sad reflections, and 
I knew from his looks there was a powerful memory 
stirring his soul. 1 think there was a whisper going 
out from the gaudy upholstery, saying, " My son, go 
home." I think there was a hand stretched out from 
under the curtains — a hand tremulous with anxiety, a 
hand that had been worn with work, a hand partly 
wrinkled with age, that seemed to beckon him away, 
and so goodness and sin seemed to struggle in that 
young man's soul; but sin triumphed, and he surren- 
dered to darkness and to death — an ox to the slaughter. 
Oh! my soul, is this the end of all the good advice? Is 
this the end of all the prayers that have been made I 



38 A PERSONAL EXPLOBATION IN HAUNTS OF VIOB. 



Have the clusters of the country vineyard been thrown 
into this great wine-press where Despair and Anguish 
and Death trample, and the vintage is a vintage of blood? 
I do not feel so sorry for that young man who, brought 
up in city life, knows beforehand what are all the sur> 
rounding temptations; but God pity the country lad 
unsuspecting and easily betrayed. Oh! young man 
from the farmhouse among the hills, what have your 
parents done that you should do this against them? 
Why are you bent on killing with trouble her who gave 
you birth ? Look at her fingers — what makes them so 
distort?' Working for you. Do you prefer to that hon- 
est old face the berouged cheek of sin? Write home 
to-morrow morning by the first mail, cursing your 
mother's white hair, cursing her stooped shoulder, curs* 
ing her old arm-chair, cursing the cradle in which she 
rocked you. "Oh!" you say, "I can't, I can't." You 
are doing it already. There is something on your hands, 
on your forehead, on your feet. It is red. What is it? 
The blood of a mother's broken heart! When you were 
threshing the harvest apples from that tree at the corner 
of the field lasc summer, did yon think you would 
ever come co this? Did you think that the sharp 
sickle of death would cut you down so soon? If I 
thought I could break the infatuation I would come 
down from the pulpit and throw my arms around you 
and beg you to stop. Perhaps I am a little more sym- 
pathetic with such because I was a country lad. It was 
not until fifteen years of age that I saw a great city. I 
remember how stupendous "New York looked as I arrived 
at Oortlandt Ferry. And now that I look back and 
remember that I had a nature all awake to hilarities and 
amusements, it is a wonder that I escaped. I was say- 
ing this to a gentleman in New York a few days a.^o, 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. 39 

and he said, "Ah! sir, I guess there were some prayers 
hovering about." Wlien I see a young man coming 
from the tame life of the country and going down in the 
city ruin, I am not surprised. My only surprise is that 
any escape, considering the allurements. I was a few 
days ago on the St. Lawrence river, and I said to the 
captain, "What a swift stream this is." "Oh!" he 
replied, " seventy-five miles from here it is ten times 
swifter. Why, we have to employ an Ir lian pilot, and 
we give him $1,000 for his summer's work, just to con- 
duct our boats through between the rocks and the islands, 
so swift are the rapids." Well, my friends, every man tha* 
comes into New York and Brooklyn life comes into the 
rapids, and the only question is whether he shall have 
safe or unsafe pilotage. Young man, your bad habits 
will be reported at the homestead. You cannot hide 
them. There are people wlio love to carry bad news, 
and there will be some accursed old gossip who will wend 
her infernal step toward the old homestead, and she will 
sit down, and, after she has a while wriggled in the 
chair she will say to your old parents, "Do you know 
your son drinks?" Then your parents will get white 
about the lips, and your mother will ask to have the 
door set a little open for the fresh air, and before that 
old gossip leaves the place she will have told your parent? 
all about the places where you are accustomed to go. 
Then your mother will come out, and she will sit down 
on the step where you used to play, and she will cry and 
cry. Then she will be sick, and the gig of the country 
doctor will come up the country lane, and the horse will 
be tied at the swing-gate, and the prescription will fail, 
and she will get w T orse and worse, and in her delirium 
she will talk about nothing but you. Then the farmers 
will come to the funeral, and tie the horses at the rail 



40 A -SRSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VIOB. 

fence about the house, and they will talk about what 
ailed the one that died, and one will say it was inter- 
mittent, and another will say it was congestion, and 
another will say it was premature old age; but it will be 
neither intermittent, nor congestion, nor old age. In the 
ponderous book of Almighty God it will be recorded for 4 
everlasting ages to read that you killed her. Our lan- 
guage is very fertile in describing different kinds of 
crime. Slaying a man is homicide. Slaying a brother 
is fratricide. Slaying a father is patricide. Slaying a 
mother is matricide. It takes two words to describe 
your crime — patricide and matricide. 

I must leave to other Sabbath mornings the unrolling 
of the scroll which I have this morning only laid on 
your table. We have come only to the vestibule of the 
subject. I have been treating of generals. I shall come 
to specifics. I have not told you of all the styles of peo- 
ple I saw in the haunts of iniquity. Before I get 
through with these sermons and next Sabbath morning 
I will answer the question everywhere asked me, why 
does municipal authority allow these haunts of iniquity? 

I will show all the obstacles in the way. Sirs, before 
I get through with this course of Sabbath morning ser- 
mons, by the help of the eternal God, I will save ten 
thousand men! And m the execution of this mission I 
defy all earth and hell. 

But I was going to tell you of an incident. I said tc 
the officer, " Well, let us go; I am tired of this scene;" 
and as we passed out of the haunts of iniquity into the 
fresh air, a soul passed in- What a face that was! Sor- 
row only half covered up with an assumed joy. It was 
a woman's face. I saw as plainly as on the page of a 
book the tragedy. You know that there is such a thing 
as somnambulism, or walking in one's sleep. Well, in 



A PERSONAL EXPLORATION IN HAUNTS OF VICE. 4:1 



a fatal somnambulism, a soul started off from her father's 
house. It was very dark, and her feet were cut of the 
rocks; but on she went until she came to the verge of a - 
chasm, and she began to descend from bowlder to 
bowlder down over the rattling shelving — for you know 
while walking in sleep people will go where they would 
not go when awake. Further on down, and further, 
where no owl of the night or hawk of the day would 
venture. On down until she touched the depth of the 
chasm. Then, in walking sleep, she began to ascend 
the other side of the chasm, rock above rock, as the roe 
boundeth. Without having her head to swim with the 
awful steep, she scaled the height. No eye but the 
sleepless eye of God watched Jier as she went down one 
side the chasm and came up the other side the chasm. 
It was an August night, and a storm was gathering, and 
a loud burst of thunder awoke her from her somnambu- 
lism, and she said, " Whither shall I fly?" and with an 
affrighted eye she looked back upon the chasm she had 
crossed, and she looked in front, and there was a deeper 
chasm before her. She said, "What shall I do? Must 
I die here?" And as she bent over the one chasm, she 
heard the sighing of the past; and as she bent over the 
other chasm, she heard the portents of the future. Then 
she sat down on the granite crag, and cried: "O! for my 
father's house! O! for the cottage, where I might die 
imid embowering honeysuckle! O! the past! O! the 
future! O! father! O! mother! O! God!" But the 
storm that had been gathering culminated, and wrote 
with finger of lightning on the sky just above the hori- 
zon, "The way of the transgressor is hard." And then 
thunder-peal after thunder-peal uttered it: "Which for- 
saketh the guide of her youth and forgetteth the cove- 
nant of her God. Destroyed without remedy!" And 



the cavern behind echoed it, »' Destroyed without rem- 
edy!" And the chasm before echoed it, "Destroyed 
without remedy!" There she perished, her cut and 
bleeding feet on the edge of one chasm, her long locks 
washed of the storm dripping over the other chasm. 

But by this time our carriage had reached the curb- 
stone of my dwelling, and I awoke, and behold it was a 
dream! 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



CHAPTEE II. 

THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 
w Policeman, what of the night ?" — Isaiah xxi: 11. 

The original of the text may be translated either 
" watchman " or " policeman." I have chosen the latter 
word. The olden- time cities were all thus guarded. 
There were roughs, and thugs, and desperadoes in Jeru- 
salem, as well as there are in New York and Brooklyn. 
The police headquarters of olden time was on top of the 
<sity wall. King Solomon, walking incognito through 
the streets, reports in one of his songs that he met these 
officials. King Solomon must have had a large posse of 
police to look after his royal grounds, for he had twelve 
thousand blooded horses in his stables, and he had mil- 
lions of dollars in his palace, and he had six hundred 
wives, and, though the palace was large, no house was 
ever large enough to hold two women married to the 
same man; much less could six hundred keep the peace. 
Well, the night was divided into three watches, the first 
watch reaching from sundown to 10 o'clock; the second 
watch from 10 o'clock to two in the morning; the third 
watch from two in the morning to sunrise. An Idumean, 
anxious about the prosperity of the city, and in regard 
to any danger that might threaten it, accosts an officer 
just as you might any night upon our streets, saying, 
"Policeman, what of the night?" Policemen, more 
than any other people, understand a city. Upon them 



are vast responsibilities for small pay. The police officer 
of your city gets $1,100 salary, but lie may spend only 
one night of an entire month in his family. The detect- 
ive of your city gets $1,500 salary, but from January to 
January there is not an hour that he may call his. own. 
Amid cold and heat and tempest, and amid the perils of 
the bludgeon of the midnight assassin, he does his work. 
The moon looks down upon nine- tenths of the iniquity 
of our great cities. What wonder, then, that a few 
weeks ago, in the interest of morality and religion, I 
asked the question of the text, " Policeman, what of the 
night?" In addition to this powerful escortage, I asked 
two elders of the church to accompany me; not because 
they were any better than the other elders of the church, 
but because they were more muscular, and I was resolved 
that in any case where anything more than spiritual 
defense was necessary, to refer the whole matter to their 
hands! I believe in muscular Christianity. I wish that 
our theological seminaries, instead of sending out so 
many men with dyspepsia and liver complaint and all 
out of breath by the time they have climbed to the top 
of the pulpit stairs, would, through gymnasiums and 
other means, send into the pulpit physical giants as well 
as spiritual athletes. I do wish I could consecrate to the 
Lord two hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois weight? 
But, borrowing the strength of others, I started out on 
the midnight exploration. I was preceded in this work 
by Thomas Chalmers, w r ho opened every door of iniquity 
in Edinburgh before he established systematic ameliora- 
tion, and preceded by Thomas Guthrie, who explored all 
the squalor of the city before he established the ragged 
schools, and by every man who has done anything to 
balk crime, and help the tempted and the destroyed. 
Above all, I followed in the footsteps of Him who was 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



45 



derided by the hypocrites* and the sanhedrims of his 
day, because he persisted in exploring the deepest moral 
slush of his time, going down among demoniacs and 
paupers and adulteresses, never so happy as when he 
had ten lepers to cure. Some of you may have been 
surprised that there was a great hue and cry raised be- 
fore these sermons were begun, and sometimes the hue 
and cry was made by professors of religion. I was not 
surprised. The simple fact is that in all our churches 
there are lepers who do not want their scabs touched, and 
they foresaw that before I got through with this series of 
sermons I would show up some of the wickedness and 
rottenness of what is called the upper class. The devil 
howled because he knew I was going to hit him hard ! 
Now, I say to all such men, whether in the church or 
out of it, "Ye hypocrites, ye generation of vipers, how 
can ye escape the damnation of hell ?" 

I noticed in my midnight exploration with these high 
officials that the haunts of sin are chiefly supported by 
men of means and men of wealth. The young men 
recently come from the country, of whom I spoke last 
Sabbath morning, are on small salary, and they have 
but little money to spend in sin, and if they go into lux- 
uriant iniquity the employer finds it out by the inflamed 
eye and the marks of dissipation, and they are discharged. 
The luxuriant places of iniquity are supported by men, 
who come down from the fashionable avenues of New York, 
and cross over from some of the finest mansions of Brook- 
lyn. Prominent business men from Boston, Philadelphia, 
and Chicago, and Cincinnati, patronize these places of 
crime. I could call the names of prominent men in 
our cluster of cities who patronize these places of in- 
iquity, and I may call their names before I get through 
this course of sermons, though the fabric of New York 



THE LEPERS OF HfGH LIFE. 



and Brooklyn society tumble into wreck. Judges of 
courts, distinguished lawyers, officers of the church, 
political orators standing on Republican and Democratic 
and Greenback platforms talking about God and good 
morals until you might suppose them to be evangelists 
expecting a thousand converts in one night. Call the 
roll of dissipation in the haunts of iniquity any night, 
and if the inmates will answer, you will find there stock- 
brokers from Wall street, large importers from Broad- 
way, iron merchants, leather merchants, cotton mer- 
chants, hardware merchants, wholesale grocers, repre- 
sentatives from all the commercial and wealthy classes. 
Talk about the heathenism below Canal street! There 
is a worse heathenism above Canal street. I prefer 
that kind of heathenism which wallows in filth and dis- 
gusts the beholder rather than that heathenism which 
covers up its walking putrefaction with camel's-hair 
shawl and point lace, and rides in turnouts worth $3,000, 
liveried driver ahead and rosetted flunky behind. We 
have been talking so much about the gospel for the 
masses; now let us talk a little about the gospel for the 
lepers of society, for the millionaire sots, for the portable 
]azzarettos of upper-tendom. It is the iniquity that 
comes down from the higher circles of society that sup- 
ports the haunts of crime, and it is gradually turning 
our cities into Sodoms and Gomorrahs waiting for the 
fire and brimstone tempest of the Lord God who 
whelmed the cities of the plain. We want about five 
hundred Anthony Comstocks to go forth and explore 
and expose the abominations of high life. For eight or 
ten years there stood within sight of the most fashionable 
New York drive a Moloch temple, a brown -stone hell on 
earth, which neither the Mayor, nor the judges, nor the 
police dared touch, when Anthony Comstock, a Christian 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



47 



man of less than average physical stature, and with 
cheek scarred by the knife of a desperado whom he had 
arrested, walked into that palace of the damned on Fifth 
avenue, and in the name of God put an end to 
to it, the priestess presiding at the orgies retreating by 
suicide into the lost world, her bleeding corpse found in 
her own bath-tub. May the eternal God have mercy on 
our cities. Gilded sin conies down from these high 
places into the upper circles of iniquity, and then on 
gradually down, until in five years it makes the whole 
pilgrimage, from the marble pillar on the brilliant 
avenue clear down to the cellars of Water street. The 
officer on that midnight exploration said to me: "Look 
at them now, and look at them three years from now 
when all this glory has departed; they'll be a heap of 
rags in the station-house." Another of the officers said 
tome: "That is the daughter of one of the wealthiest 
families on Madison square." 

But I have something more amazing to tell you than 
that the men of means and wealth support these haunts 
of iniquity, and that is, that they are chiefly supported 
by heads of families — fathers and husbands, with the 
awful perjury of broken marriage vows upon them, with 
a niggardly stipend left at home for the support of their 
families, going forth with their thousands for the dia- 
monds and wardrobe and equipage of iniquity. In the 
name of heaven, I denounce this public iniquity. Let 
such men be hurled out of decent circles. Let them be 
hurled out from business circles. If they will not 
repent, overboard with them! I lift one-half the bur- 
den of malediction from the unpitied head of offending 
woman, and hurl it on the blasted pate of offending man ! 
Society needs a new division of its anathema. By what 
law of justice does burning excoriation pursue offending 



±8 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFZL 



woman down off the precipices of destruction, while 
offending man, kid-gloved, walks in refined circles, 
invited up if he have money, advanced into political 
recognition, while all the doors of high life open at the 
first rap of his gold-headed cane? I say, if yon let one 
come back, let them both come back. If one must go 
down, let both go down. I give you as my opinion that 
the eternal perdition of all other sinners will be a heaven 
compared with the punishment everlasting of that man 
who, turning his back upon her whom he swore to pro- 
tect and defend until death, and upon his children, whose 
destiny may be decided by his example, goes forth to 
seek affectional alliances elsewhere. For such a man the 
portion will be fire, and hail, and tempest, and darkness, 
and blood, and anguish, and despair forever, forever, for- 
ever! My friends, there has got to be a reform in this 
matter, or American society will go to pieces. Under 
the head of " incompatibility of temper," nine-tenths of 
the abomination goes on. What did you get married 
for if your dispositions are incompatible? "Oh!' ? you 
say, "I rushed into it without thought " Then you 
ought to be willing to suffer the punishment for making 
a fool of yourself I Incompatibility of temper! You 
are responsible for at least a half of the incompatibility 
Why are you not honest and willing to admit either that 
you did not control your temper, or that you had already 
broken your marriage oath ? In nine hundred and ninety- 
nine cases out of the thousand, incompatibility is a 
phrase to cover up wickedness already enacted. I declare 
in the presence of this city and in the presence of the 
world that heads of families are supporting these haunts 
of iniquity. I wish there might be a police raid lasting 
a great while, that they would just go down through all 
these places of sin and gather up all the prominent busi- 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



49 



ness men of the city, and march them down through the 
street followed by about twenty reporters to take their 
names and put them in full capitals in the next day's 
paper! Let such a course be undertaken in our cities, 
and in six months there would be eighty per cent, off 
your public crime. It is not now the young men ard 
the boys that need so much looking after; it is theW 
fathers and mothers. Let heads of families cease to pat- 
ronize places of iniquity, and in a short time they would 
crumble to ruin. 

But you meet me with the question, "Why don't the 
city authorities put an end to such places of iniquity?" 
I answer in regard to Brooklyn, the work has already 
been done. Six years ago there were in the radius of 
your City Hall thirty-eight gambling saloons. They 
are all broken up. The ivory and wooden " chips " 
that came from the gambling-hells into the Police Head- 
quarters came in by the peck. How many inducements 
were offered to our officials, such as: "This will be worth 
a thousand dollars to you if you will let it go on." "This 
will be worth five thousand if you will only let it go on." 
But our commissioners of police, mightier than any 
bribe, pursued their work until, while beyond the city 
limits there may be exceptions, within the city*limits of 
Brooklyn there is not a gambling-hell, or policy-shop, 
or a house of death so pronounced. There are under- 
ground iniquities and hidden scenes, but none so pro- 
nounced. Every Monday morning all the captains of 
the police make reports in regard to their respective pre- 
cincts. When the work began, the police in authority 
at that time said: "Oh! it can't be done; we can't get 
into these places of iniquity to see them, and hence we 
can't break them up." "Then," said the commissioners 
of police 3 "break in the doors;" and it is astonishing how 



60 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



soon >Jter the shoulders of a stout policeman goes against 
the door, it gets off its hinges. Some of the captains of 
police said: "This thing has been going on so long, it 
cannot be crushed." "Then," said the commissioners 
of police, "we'll get other captains of police." The 
work went on until now, if a reformer wants the com- 
missioners of police to show him the haunts of iniquity 
in Brooklyn, there are none to show him. If you know 
a single case that is an exception to what I say, report 
it to me at the close of this service at the foot of this 
pla/ -brm, and I will warrant that within two hours after 
3^ou veport the case Commissioner Jourdan, Superin- 
tendent Campbell, Inspector Waddy, and as many of the 
twenty-five detectives and of the five hundred and fifty 
policemen as are necessary will come down on it like an 
Alpine avalanche. If you do not report it, it is because 
you ar a coward, or else because you are in the sin your- 
self, and you do not want it shown up. You shall bear 
the whole responsibility, and it shall not be thrown on 
the hard-working and heroic detective and police force. 
But you say: "How has this general clearing out of 
gambling-hells and places of iniquity been accom- 
plished?" Our authorities have been backed up by a 
high public sentiment. In a city which has on its judi- 
cial bench such magnificent men as Neilson, and 
Reynolds, and McCue, and Moore, and Pratt, and others 
whom I am not fortunate enough to know, there must 
be a mighty impulse upward toward God and good mor- 
als. We have in the high places of this city men not 
only with great heads, but with great hearts. A young 
man disappeared from his father's house about the time 
the Brooklyn Theater burned, and it was supposed that 
he had been destroyed in that ruin. The father, broken- 
hearted, sold his property in Brooklyn, and in desolation 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



il 



left the eity. Recently the wandering son came back. 
He could not find his father, who, in departing, had 
given no idea of his destination. The case was reported 
to a man high in official position, and he sat down and 
wrote a letter to all the chiefs of police in the United 
States, in order that he might deliver that prodigal son 
into the arms of his broken-hearted father. A few days 
ago it was found that the father was in California. I 
understand that son is now on the way to meet him, and 
it will be the parable of the prodigal son over again 
when they embrace each other, and the father says: 
"Rejoice with me, for this my son was dead and is alive 
again, was lost and is found." I have forgotten the 
name of the father, I have forgotten the name of his son ; 
but I have not forgotten the name of the officer whose 
sympathetic heart beats so loud under his badge of office. 
It was Patrick Campbell, Superintendent of the Brook- 
lyn police. I do not mention these things as a matter 01 
city pride, nor as a matter of exultation, but of gratitude 
to God that Brooklyn to-day stands foremost among 
American cities in its freedom from places of iniquity. 
But Brooklyn has a large share of sin. Where do the 
people of Brooklyn go when they propose to commit 
abomination ? To New York. I was told in the mid- 
night exploration in New York with the police that 
there are some places almost entirely supported by men 
and women from Brooklyn. "We are one city after all — 
one now before the bridge is completed, to be more 
thoroughly one when the bridge is done. 

Well, then, you press me with another question : "Why 
don't the public authorities of New York extirpate these 
haunts of iniquity V- Before I give you a definite answer 
I want to say that the obstacles in that city are greater 
than in any city on this continent. It is so vast. It is 



52 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



the landing place of European immigration. Its wealth 
is mighty to establish and defend places of iniquity. 
Twice a year there are incursions of people from all 
parts of the land coming on the spring and the fall trade. 
It requires twenty times the municipal energy to keep 
order in New York that it does in any city from Port- 
land to San Francisco. But still you pursue me with 
the question, and I am to answer it by telling you that 
there is infinite fault and immensity of blame to be 
divided between three parties. First, the police of New 
York city. So far as I know them they are courteous 
gentlemen. They have had great discouragement, they 
tell me, in the fact that when they arrest crime and 
bring it before the courts the witnesses will not appear 
lest they criminate themselves. They tell me also that 
they have been discouraged by the fact that so many 
suits have been brought against them for damages. But 
after all, my friends, they must take their share of blame. 
I have come to the conclusion, after much research and 
investigation, that there are captains of police in New 
York who are in complicity with crime — men who 
make thousands of dollars a year for the simple 
fact that they will not tell, and will permit places of 
iniquity to stand month after month and year after year. 
I am told that there are captains of police in New York 
who get a percentage on every bottle of wine sold in the 
haunts of death, and that they get a revenue from all the 
shambles of sin. What a state of things this is ! In the 
Twenty-ninth precinct of New York there are one hun- 
dred and twenty-one dens of death. Night after night } 
month after month, year after year, untouched. In West 
Twenty-sixth street and West twenty-seventh street and 
West Thirty-first street there are whole blocks that are 
a pandemonium. There are between five and six hun= 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



53 



ared dens of darkness in the city of New York, where 
there are 2,500 policemen. Not long ago there was a 
masquerade ball in which the masculine and feminine 
offenders of society were the participants, and some of 
the police danced in the masquerade and distributed the 
prizes! There is the grandest opportunity that has ever 
opened, for any American, open now. It is for that man 
in high official position who shall get into his stirrups 
and say, "Men, follow?" and who shall in one night 
sweep around and take all of these leaders of iniquity, 
whether on suspicion or on positive proof, saying, " I'll 
take the responsibility, come on! I put my private 
property and my political aspirations and my life into 
this crusade against the powers of darkness." That man 
would be Mayor of the city of New York. That man 
would be fit to be President of the United States. 

But the second part of the blame I must put at the 
door of the District Attorney of New York. I under- 
stand he is an honorable gentleman, but he has not time 
to attend to all these cases. Literally, there are thousands 
of cases unpursued for lack of time. Now, I say, it is 
the business of New York to give assistants, and clerks, 
and help to the District Attorney until all these places 
shall go down in quick retribution. 

But the third part of the blame, and the heaviest part 
of it, I put on the moral and Christian people of our 
cities, who are guilty of most culpable indifference on 
this whole subject. When Tweed stole his millions 
large audiences were assembled in indignation, Charles 
O'Conor was retained, committees of safety and investi- 
gation were appointed, and a great stir made; but night 
by night there is a theft and a burglary of city morals 
as much worse than Tweed's robberies as his were worse 
than common shop-lifting, and it has very little opposi- 



cion. I tell you what New York wants ; it wants indig- 
nation meetings in Cooper Institute and Academy of 
Music and Chickering and Irving Halls to compel the 
public authorities to do their work and to send the police, 
with clubs and lanterns and revolvers, to turn off the 
colored lights of the dance-houses, and to mark for con- 
fiscation the trunks and wardrobes and furniture and 
scenery, and to gather up all the keepers, and all the in- 
mates, and all the patrons, and march them out to the 
Tombe, fife and drum sounding the Rogue's March. 

While there are men smoking their cigarettes, with 
their feet on Turkish divans, shocked that a minister of 
religion should explore and expose the. iniquity of city 
life, there are raging underneath our great cities a Coto- 
paxi, a Stromboli,a Vesuvius, ready to bury us in ashes and 
scoria deeper than that which overwhelmed Pompeii and 
Herculaneiun. Oh! I wish the time would come for the 
plowshare of public indignation to push through and 
rip up and turn under those parts of New York which 
are the plague of the nation. Now is the time to hitch 
up the team to this plowshare. In this time, when Mr. 
Cooper is Mayor, and Mr. Kelly is Comptroller, and Mr. 
Nichols is Police Commissioner, and Superintendent 
Walling wears the badge of office, and there is on the 
judicial benches of New York an array of the best men 
that have ever occupied those positions since the founda- 
tion of the city — Recorder Hackett, Police Magistrates 
Kilbreth, Wandell, Morgan and Duffy ; such men as 
Gildersleeve, and Sutherland, and Davis, and Curtis ; 
and on the United States Court bench in New York 
such men as Benedict, and Blatchford, and Choate — now 
is the time to make an extirpation of iniquity. Now is 
the time for a great crusade, and for the people of our cities 
in great public assemblages to say to police authority: 



THE LEPERS OP HIGH LIFE. 



" Go ahead, and we will back you with our lives, our for- 
tunes, and our sacred honor." 

I must adjourn until next Sabbath morning much of 
what I wanted to say about certain forms of iniquity 
which I saw rampant in the night of my exploration 
with the city officials. But before I stop this morning 
I want to have one word with a class of men with whom 
people have so little patience that they never get a kind 
word of invitation. I mean the men who have forsaken 
their homes. Oh! my brother, return. You say: "I 
can't ; I have no home ; my home is broken up. ,? Re- 
establish your home. It has been done in other cases, 
why may it not be done in your case? " Oh," you say, 
" we parted for life ; we have divided our property ; we 
have divided our effects.' 5 I ask you, did you divide the 
marriage ring of that bright day when you started life 
together ? Did you divide your family Bible? If so, 
where did you divide it? Across the Old Testament, 
where the Ten Commandments denounce your sin, or 
across the New Testament, where Christ says : " Blessed 
are the pure in heart?" Or did you divide it between 
the Old and the New Testaments, right across the family 
record of weddings and births and deaths ? Did you 
divide the cradle in which you rocked your first born ? 
Did you divide the little grave in the cemetery, over 
which you stood with linked arms, looking down in awful 
bereavement? Above all, I ask you, did you divide your 
hope for heaven, so that there is no full hope left for 
either of you? Go back! There maybe a great gulf 
between you and once happy domesticity; but Christ 
will bridge that gulf. It may be a bridge of sighs. Turn 
toward it. Put your foot on the over-arching span. 
Jlear it ! It is a voice unrolling from the throne: " He 
that overcometh shall inherit ail things, and I will be 



56 



THE LEPERS OF HIGH LIFE. 



unto him a God, and he shall be my son ; but the un- 
believing, and the sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and 
the adulterers, and the idolators, and all liars shall have 
their part in the lake which burnetii with fire and brim* 
stone — which is the second death I w 



IBM GATES OE HELL. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE GATES OF HELL. 

"The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. "-St. Matthew xvi : 18. 
; ' It is only 10 o'clock," said the officer of the law, as 
we got into the carriage for the midnight exploration — 
" it is only 10 o'clock, and it is too early to see the places 
that we wish to see, for the theaters have not yet let out." 
I said, " What do you mean by that ?" " Well," he said, 
" the places of iniquity are not in full blast until the 
people have time to arrive from the theaters." So„we 
loitered on, and the officer told the driver to stop on a 
street where is one of the costliest and most brilliant 
gambling-houses in the city of New York. As we came 
up in front all seemed dark. The blinds were down ; 
the door was guarded ; but after a whispering of the 
officer with the guard at the door, we were admitted into 
the hall, and thence into the parlors, around one table 
finding eight or ten men in mid-life, well-dressed — all 
the work going on in silence, save the noise of the 
rattling " chips " on the gaming-table in one parlor, and 
the revolving ball of the roulette table in the other par- 
lor. Some of these men, we were told, had served terms 
in prison; some were ship-wrecked bankers and brokers 
and money-dealers, ana some were going their first 
rounds of vice — but all intent upon the table, as large or 
small fortunes moved up and down before them. Oh! 
there was something awfully solemn in the silence — the 
intense gaze, the suppressed emotion of the players. No 



one looked up. They all had money in the rapids, and 
I have no doubt some saw, as they sat there, horses and 
carriages, and houses and lands, and home and family 
rushing down into the vortex. A man's life would not 
have been worth a farthing in that presence had he not 
been accompanied by the police, if he had been supposed 
to be on a Christian errand of observation. Some of 
these men went by private key, some went in by careful 
introduction, some were taken in by the patrons of the 
establishment. The officer of the law told me: " None 
get in here except by police m ndate, or by some letter 
of a patron." While we were there a young man came 
in, put his money down on the roulette-table, and lost ; 
put more money down on the roulette-table, and lost ; 
put more money down on the roulette- table, and lost; 
then feeling in his pockets for more money, finding none, 
in severe silence he turned his back upon the scene and 
passed out. All the literature about the costly magnifi- 
cence of such places is untrue. Men kept their hats on 
and smoked, and there was nothing in the upholstery or 
the furniture to forbid. While we stood there men lost 
their property and lost their souls. Oh! merciless place. 
Not once in all the history of that gaming-house has 
there been one word of sympathy uttered for the losers 
at the game. Sir Horace Walpole said that a man 
dropped dead in front of one of the club-houses of Lon- 
don; his body was carried into the club-house, and the 
members of the club began immediately to bet as to 
whether he were dead or alive, and when it was proposed 
to test the matter by bleeding him, it was only hindered 
by the suggestion that it would be unfair to some of the 
players! In these gaming-houses of our cities, men have 
their property wrung away from them, and then they 
go out, some of them to drown their grief in strong 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



drink, some to ply the counterfeiter's pen, and so restore 
their fortunes, some resort to the suicide's revolver, but 
all going down, and that work proceeds day by day, and 
night by night, until it is estimated that every day in 
Christendom eighty million dollars pass from hand to 
hand through gambling practices, and every year in 
Christendom one hundred and twenty-three billion, one 
hundred million dollars change hands in that way. 

" But," I said, " it is 11 o'clock, and we must be off." 
We passed out into the hallway and so into the street, 
t\ie burly guard slamming the door of the house after us, 
and we got into the carriage and rolled on toward the 
gates of hell. You know about the gates of heaven. 
You have often heard them preached about. There are 
three to each point of the compass. On the north, three 
gates; on the south, three gates; on the east, three 
gates; on the west, three gates; and each gate is of solid 
pearl. Oh! gate of heaven ; may we all get into it. But 
who shall describe the gates of hell spoken of in my text? 
These gates are burnished until they sparkle and glisten 
in the gas-light. They are mighty, and set in sockets 
of deep and dreadful masonry. They are high, so that 
those who are in may not clamber over and get out. 
They are heavy, but they swing easily in to let those go 
in who are to be destroyed. Well, my friends, it is 
always safe to go where God tells you to go, and God 
had told me to go through these gates of hell, and ex- 
plore and report, and, taking three of the high police 
authorities and two of the elders of my church, I went 
in, and I am here this morning to sketch the gates of 
hell. I remember, when the Franco-German war was 
going on, that I stood one day in Paris looking at the 
gates of theTuilleries, and I was so absorbed in the sculp- 
turing at the top of the gates — the masonry and the 



bronze — that I forgot myself, and after awhile, looking 
down, I saw that there were officers of the law scrutinizing 
me, supposing, no doubt, I was a German, and looking 
at those gates for adverse purposes. But, my friends, 
we shall not stand looking at the outside of the gates of 
hell. Through this midnight exploration I shall tell 
you of both sides, and I shall tell you what those gates 
are made of. With the hammer of God's truth I shall 
pound on the brazen panels, and with the lantern of 
God's truth I shall flash a light upon the shining 
hinges. 

Gate the first: Impure literature. Anthony Corn- 
stock seized twenty tons of bad books, plates, and letter- 
press, and when our Professor Cochran, of the Poly- 
technic Institute, poured the destructive acids on those 
plates, they smoked in the righteous annihilation. And 
yet a great deal of the bad literature of the clay is not 
gripped of the law. It is strewn in your parlors; it is 
in your libraries. Some of your children read it at night 
after they have retired, the gas-burner swung as near as 
possible to their pillow. Much of this literature is un- 
der the title of scientific information. A book agent 
with one of these infernal books, glossed over with scien- 
tific nomenclature, went into a hotel and sold in one day 
a hundred copies, and sold them all to women! It is 
appalling that men and women who can get through 
their family physician all the useful information they 
may need, and without any contamination, should wade 
chin deep through such accursed literature under the 
plea of getting useful knowledge, and that printing- 
presses, hoping to be called decent, lend themselves to 
this infamy. Fathers and mothers, be not deceived by 
the title, "medical works." Nine-tenths of those books 
come hot from the lost world, though they may have on 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



them the names of the publishing-houses of New York 
and Philadelphia. Then there is all the novelette literax 
ture of the day flung over the land by the million. As 
there are good novels that are long, so I suppose there 
may be good novels that are short, and so there may be 
a good novelette, but it is the exception. No one — mark 
this — no one systematically reads the average novelette 
of this day and keeps either integrity or virtue. The 
most of these novelettes are written by broken-down 
literary men for small compensation, on the principle 
that, having failed in literature elevated and pure, they 
hope to succeed in the tainted and the nasty. Oh! this 
is a wide gate of hell. Every panel is made out of a bad 
book or newspaper. Every hinge is the interjoined type 
of a corrupt printing-press. Every bolt or lock of that 
gate is made. out of the plate of an unclean pictorial. In 
other words, there are a million men and women in the 
United States to-day reading themselves into hell ! When 
in your own beautiful city a prosperous family fell into 
ruins through the misdeeds of one of its members, the 
amazed mother said to the officer of the law: " Why, I 
never supposed there was anything wrong. I never 
thought there could be anything wrong." Then she sat 
weeping in silence for some time, and said: "Oh! I 
have got it now! I know, I now! I found in her 
bureau after she went away a bad book. That's what 
slew her." These leprous booksellers have gathered up 
the catalogues of all the male and female seminaries in 
the United States, catalogues containing the names and 
the residences of all the students, and circulars of death 
are sent to every one, without any exception. Can you 
imagine anything more deaihful? There is not a young 
person, male or female, or aii old person, who has not 
had offered to him or her a bad book or a bad picture 



Scour jour house to find out whether there are any of 
these adders coiled on your parlor center-table, or coiled 
amid the toilet set on the dressing-case. I adjure you 
before the sun goes down to explore your family -ibraries 
with an inexorable scrutiny. Remember that ">ne bad 
book or bad picture may do the work for eternity. I 
Want to arouse all your suspicions about novelettes. I 
want to put you on the watch against everything that 
may seem like surreptitious correspondence through the 
postoffice. I want you to understand that impure litera- 
ture is one of the broadest, highest, mightiest gates of 
the lost. 

Gate the second: The dissolute dance. You shall not 
divert me to the general subject of dancing. Whatever 
you may think of the parlor dance, or the methodic mo- 
tion of the body to sounds of music in the family or 
the social circle, I am not now discussing that question. 
I want you to unite with me this morning in recogniz- 
ing the fact that there is a dissolute dance. You know 
of what I speak. It is seen not only in the low haunts 
of death, but in elegant mansions. It is the first step to 
eternal ruin for a great multitude of both sexes. You 
know, my friends, what postures, and attitudes, and fig- 
ures are suggested of the devil. They who glide into 
the dissolute dance glide over an inclined plane, and the 
dance is swifter and swifter, wilder and wilder, until 
with the speed of lightning they whirl off the edges of 
a decent life into a fiery future. This gate of hell swings 
across the Axminster of many a fine parlor, and across 
the ball-room of the summer watering-place. You have 
no right, my brother, my sister — you have no right to 
take an attitude to the sound of music which would be 
unbecoming in the absence of music. No Chickering 
grand of city parlor or fiddle of mountain picnic can 
consecrate that which God hath cursed. 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



63 



Gate the third : Indiscreet apparel. The attire of 
woman for the last four or five years has been be- ciful 
and graceful beyond anything I have known ; but there 
are those who will always carry that which is right into 
the extraordinary and indiscreet. I am told that there 
is a fashion about to come in upon us that is shocking 
to all righteousness. I charge Christian women, neither 
by style of dress nor adjustment of apparel, to become 
administrative of evil. Perhaps none else will dare to 
tell you, so I will tell you that there are multitudes of 
men who owe their eternal damnation to the boldness 
of womanly attire. Show me the fashion-plates of any 
age between this and the time of Louis XVT., of France, 
and Henry VIIL, of England, and I will tell you the 
type of morals or immorals of that age or that year. 
No exception to it. Modest apparel means a righteous 
people. Immodest apparel always means a contaminated 
and depraved society. You wonder that the city of Tyre 
was destroyed with such a terrible destruction. Have 
you ever seen the fashion-plate of the city of Tyre? I 
will show it to you: 

"Moreover, the Lord saith, because the daughters of Zion are 
haughty and walk with stretched-forth necks and wanton eyes, walk- 
ing and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet, 
in that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling 
ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their round tires like 
the moon, the rings and nose jewels, the changeable suits of apparel, 
and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins." 

That is the fashion-plate of ancient Tyre. And do 
you wonder that the Lord God in His indignation 
blotted out the city, so that fishermen to-day spread their 
nets where that city once stood? 

Gate the fourth: Alcoholic beverage. In our mid- 
night exploration we saw that all the scenes of wicked- 
ness were under the enchantment of the wine-cup. That 



was what the waitresses carried on the platter. That 
was what glowed on the table. That was what shone in 
illuminated gardens. That was what flushed the cheeks 
of the patrons who came in. That was what staggered 
the step of the patrons as they went out. Oh! the wine 
cup is the patron of impurity. The officers of the law 
that night told us that nearly all the men who go into 
the shambles of death go in intoxicated, the mental and 
the spiritual abolished, that the brute may triumph. 
Tell me that a young man drinks, and I know the whole 
story. If he become a captive of the wine-cup, he will 
become a captive of all other vices; only give him time. 
No one ever runs drunkenness alone. That is a car- 
rion-crow that goes in a flock, and when you see that 
beak ahead, you may know the other beaks are coming. 
In other words, the wine-cup unbalances and dethrones 
one's better judgment, and leaves one the prey of all evil 
appetites that may choose to alight upon his soul. 
There is not a place of any kind of sin in the United 
States to-day that does not find its chief abettor in the 
chalice of inebriacy. There is either a drinking-bar 
before, or one behind, or one above, or one underneath. 
The officers of the law said to me that night: "These 
people escape legal penalty because they are all licensed 
to sell liquor." Then I said within myself, " The courts 
that license the sale of strong drink, license gambling- 
houses, license libertinism, license disease, license death, 
license all sufferings, all crimes, all despoliations, all 
disasters, all murders, all woe. It is the courts and the 
Legislature that are swinging wide open this grinding, 
creaky, stupendous gate of the lost." 

But you say, "You have described these gates of hell 
and shown us how they swing in to allow the entrance 
of the doomed. Will you not, please, before you get 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



66 



through the sermon, tell us how these gates of hell may 
swing out to allow the escape of the penitent?" I reply, 
but very few escape. Of the thousand that go in nine 
hundred and ninety-nine perish. Suppose one of these 
wanderers should knock at your door, would you admit 
her? Suppose you knew where she came from, would 
you ask her to sit down at your dining- table? Would 
you ask her to become the governess of your children? 
Would you introduce her among your acquaintanceships? 
Would you take the responsibility of pulling on the out- 
side of the gate of hell while she pushed on the inside of 
that gate trying to get out? You would not, not one of 
a thousand of you that would dare to do it. You write 
beautiful poetry over her sorrows and weep over her 
misfortunes, but give her practical help you never will. 
There is not one person out of a thousand that will — 
there is not one out of five thousand that has — come so 
near the heart of the Lord Jesus Christ as to dare to 
help one of these fallen souls. But you say, "Are there 
no ways by which the wanderer may escape?" Oh, yes; 
three or four. The one way is the sewing- girl's garret, 
dingy, cold, hunger-blasted. But you say, "Is there no 
other way for her to escape?" Oh, yes. Another way 
is the street that leads to the East river, at midnight, the 
end of the city dock, the moon shining down on the 
water making it look so smooth she wonders if it is deep 
enough. It is. No boatman near enough to hear the 
plunge. No watchman near enough to pick her out 
before she sinks the third time. No other way? Yes. 
By the curve of the Hudson River Railroad at the point 
where the engineer of the lightning express train cannot 
see a hundred yards ahead to the form that lies across 
the track. He may whistle "down brakes," but not soon 
enough to disappoint the one who seeks her death. But 



you say, "Isn't God good, and won't he forgive?" Yes; 
bnt man will not, woman will not, society will not. The 
church of God says it will, but it will not. Our work, 
then, must be prevention rather than cure. Standing here 
telling this story to-day, it is not so much in the hope that 
I will persuade one who has dashed down a thousand 
feet over the rocks to crawl up again into life and light, 
but it is to alarm those who are coming too near the 
edges. Have you ever listened to hear the lamentation 
that rings up from those far depths ? 

" Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, 
Fell like a snowflake, from heaven to hell ; 
Fell, to be trampled as filth of the street ; 
Fell, to be scoffed at, be spit on, and beat. 
Pleading, cursing, begging to die, 
Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; 
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, 
Hating the living and fearing the dead." 

But you say. "What can be the practical use of this 
course of sermons?" I say, much everywhere. I am 
greatly obliged to those gentlemen of the press who have 
fairly reported what I have said on these occasions, and 
the press of this city and New York, and of the othsr 
prominent cities. I thank you for the almost universal 
fairness with which you have presented what I have had 
to say. Of course, among the educated and refined 
journalists who sit at these tables, and have been sitting 
here for four or five years, there will be a fool or two 
that does not understand his business, but thai ought 
not to discredit the grand newspaper printing-press. I 
thank also, those who have by letters cheered me in this 
work — letters coming from all parts of the land, from 
Christian reformers telling me to go on in the work 
which I have undertaken. Never so many letters in my 
life have I received. Perhaps one out of the hundred 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



67 



condemnatory, as one I got yesterday from a man who 
said he thought my sermons would do great damage in 
the fact that they would arouse the suspicion of domestic 
circles as to where the head of the family was spending 
his evenings! I was sorry it was an anonymous letter 
for I should have written to that man's wife telling her 
to put a detective on her husband's track, for I knew 
right away he was going to bad places! My friends, 
you say, " It is not possible to do anything with these 
stalwart iniquities; you cannot wrestle them down." 
Stupid man, read my text: "The gates of hell shall not 
prevail against the church." Those gates of hell are to 
be prostrated just as certainly as God and the Bible are 
true, but it will not be done until Christian men and 
women, quitting their prudery and squeamishness in 
this matter, rally the whole Christian sentiment of the 
church and assail these great evils of society. The Bible 
utters its denunciation in this direction again and again, 
and yet the piety of the day is such a namby-pamby 
emetic sort of a thing that you cannot even quote Scrip- 
ture without making somebody restless. As long as 
this holy imbecility reigns in the church of God, sin will 
laugh you to scorn. I do not know but that before the 
church wakes up matters will get worse and worse, and 
that there will have to be one lamb sacrificed from each 
of the most carefully-guarded folds, and the wave of 
uncleanness dash to the spire of the village church and 
the top of the cathedral pillar. Prophets and patriarchs^ 
and apostles and evangelists,and Christ himself have thun- 
dered against these sins as against no other, and yet there 
are those who think we ought to take, when we speak of 
these subjects, a tone apologetic. I put my foot on all 
the conventional rhetoric on this subject, and I tell you 
plainly that unless you give up that sin your doom is 



sealed, and world without end you will be chased by the 
anathemas of an incensed God. I rally you under the 
cheerful prophecy of the text; I rally you to a besiege- 
ment of the gates of hell. We want in this besieg- 
ing host no soft sentimentalists, but men who are willing 
to give and take hard knocks. The gates of Gaza were 
carried off, the gates of Thebes were battered down, the 
gates of Babylon were destroyed, and the gates of hell 
are going to be prostrated. The Christianized printing- 
press will be rolled up as the chief battering-ram. Then 
there will be a long list of aroused pulpits, which shall 
be assailing fortresses, and God's red-hot truth shall be 
the flying ammunition of the contest; and the sappers 
and the miners will lay the train under these foundations 
of sin, and at just the right time God, who leads on the 
fray, will cry, " Down with the gates!" and the explo- 
sion beneath will be answered by all the trumpets of God 
on high celebrating universal victory. But there may be 
in this house one wanderer that would like to have a 
kind word calling homeward, and I cannot sit down until 
I have uttered that word. I have told you that society 
has no mercy. Did I hint, at an earlier point in this 
subject, that God will have mercy upon any wanderer 
who would like to come back to the heart of infinite 
love? 

A cold Christmas night in a farm-house. Father 
comes in from the barn, knocks the snow from his shoes, 
and sits down by the fire. The mother sits at the stand 
knitting. She says to him : " Do you remember it is 
anniversary to-night?" The father is angered. He never 
wants any allusion to the fact that one had gone away, 
and the mere suggestion that it was the anniversary of 
that sad event made him quite rough, although the tears 
ran down his cheeks. The old house-dog, that had played 



THE GATES OF HELL. 



with the wanderer when she was a child, came up and 
put his head on the old man's knee, but he roughly 
repulsed the dog. He wants nothing to remind him of 
the anniversary day. The following incident ^as told me. 
It was a cold winter night in a city church, .t is Christ- 
mas night. They have been decorating the sanctuary. A 
lost wanderer of the street, with thin shawl about her, at* 
cracted by the warmth and light, comes in and sits near 
the door. The minister of religion is preaching of Him 
who was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for 
our iniquities, and the poor soul by the door said: "Why, 
that must mean me; 'mercy for the chief of sinners; 
bruised for our iniquities ; wounded for our transgres- 
sions.' " The music that night in the sanctuary brought 
back the old hymn which she used to sing when with 
father and mother she worshiped God in the village 
church. The service over, the minister went down the 
aisle. She said to him: " Were those words for me? 
'Wounded for our transgressions.' Was that for me?" 
The man of God understood her not. He knew not 
how to comfort a shipwrecked soul, and he passed on and 
he passed out. The poor wanderer followed into the 
street. "What are you doing here, Meg?" said the 
police. " What are you doing here to-night?" "Oh!" 
she replied, " I was in to warm myself;" and then the 
rattling cough came, and she held to the railing until 
the paroxysm was over. She passed on down the street, 
falling from exhaustion; recovering herself again, until 
after a while she reached the outskirts of the city and 
passed on into the country road. It seemed so familiar, 
she kept on the road, and she saw in the distance a light 
in the window. Ah! that light had been gleaming there 
every night since she went away. On that country 
road she passed until she came to the garden gate. She 



opened it and passed up the path where she played in 
childhood. She came to the steps and looked in at the 
fire on the hearth. Then she put her fingers to the latch. 
Oh! if that door had been locked she would have per- 
ished on the threshold, for she was near to death. But 
that door had not been locked since the time she went 
away. She pushed open the door. She went in and laid 
down on the hearth by the fire. The old house-dog 
growled as he saw her enter, but there was something in 
the voice he recognized, and he frisked about her until 
he almost pushed her down in his joy. In the morning 
the mother came down, and she saw a bundle of rags on 
the hearth; but when the face was uplifted, she knew itj 
and it was no more old Meg of the street. Throwing 
her arms around the returned prodigal, she cried, " Oh ! 
Maggie." The child threw her arms around her mother's 
neck, and said: u Oh! Mother," and while they were 
embraced a rugged form towered above them. It was 
the father. The severity all gone out of his face, he 
stooped and took her up tenderly and carried her to 
mother's room, and laid her down on mother's bed, for 
she was dying. Then the lost one, looking up into her 
mother's face, said: " 'Wounded for our transgressions 
and bruised for our iniquities!" Mother, do you think 
that means me ?" " Oh, yes, my darling," said the 
mother, " if mother is so glad to get you back, don't you 
think G-od is glad to get you back?" And there she 
lay dying, and all her dreams and all her prayers were 
filled with the words, ''Wounded for our transgressions, 
bruised for our iniquities," until just before the moment 
of her departure, her face lighted up, showing the pardon 
of G-od had dropped upon her soul. And there she slept 
away on the bosom of & pardoning Jesus. So the Lord 
took back one whom tk* world rejected. 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 



CHAPTER IT. 

WHOM I SAW AND WHOM I MISSED. 

"And the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits."— Genesis xiv: 
About six months ago, a gentleman in Augusta, Geor- 
gia, wrote me asking me to preach from this text, and 
the time has come for the subject. The neck of an army 
had been broken by falling into these half-hidden sli me- 
rits. How deep they were, or how vile, or how hard to 
get out of, we are not told; but the whole scene is so far 
distant in the past that we have not half as much inter- 
est in this statement of the text as we have in the 
announcement that our American cities are full of slime- 
pits, and tens of thousands of people are falling in them 
night by night. Recently, in th& name of God, I ex- 
plored some of these slime-pits. Why d\A I do so? In 
April lastj seated in the editorial ro^ms of one of the 
chief daily newspapers of New Yc^, the editor said to 
Itne: "Mr. Talmage, you clergymen are at great disad- 
vantage when you come to battle iniquity, for you don't 
know what you are talking about, and we laymen are 
aware of the fact that you don't know of what you are 
talking; now, if you would like to make a personal inves- 
tigation, I will see that you shall get the highest official 
escort." I thanked him, accepted the invitation, and 
told him that this autumn I would begin the tour. The 
fact was that I had for a long time wanted to say some 
words of warning and invitation to the young men of 
this country, and I felt if my course of sermons was 
preceded by a tour of this sort I should not only be bet- 



ter acquainted with the subject, but I should have the 
whole country for an audience; and it has been a delib- 
erate plan of my ministry, whenever I am going to try 
to (Jo anything especial for God, or humanity, or the 
xhurch, to do it in such a way that the devil will always 
advertise it free gratis for nothing! That was the reason 
I gave two weeks' previous notice of my pulpit inten- 
tions. The result has been satisfactory. 

Standing within those purlieus of death, under the 
command of the police and in their company, I was as 
much surprised at the people whom I missed as at the 
people whom I saw. I saw bankers there, and brokers 
there, and merchants there, and men of all classes and 
occupations who have leisure, there; but there was one 
class of persons that I missed. I looked for them all 
up and down the galleries, and amid the illumined 
gardens, and all up and down the staircases of death. 
i saw not one of them. I mean the hard-working classes, 
the laboring classes, of our great cities. You tell me 
they could not afford to go there. They could. Entrance, 
twenty-five cents. They could have gone there if they 
had a mind to; but the simple fact is that hard work is 
a friend to good morals. The men who toil from eaiCy 
morn until late at night when they go home are tired 
out, and want to sit down and rest, or to saunter out with 
their families along the street, or to pass into some quiet 
place of amusement where they will not be ashamed to 
take wife or daughter. The busy populations of these 
cities are the moral populations. I observed on the 
night of our exploration that the places of dissipation 
are chiefly supported by the men who go to business at 
9 and 10 o'clock in the morning and get through at 3- 
and 4 in the afternoon. They have plenty of time to go 
to destruction in and plenty of money to buy a through 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 



78 



ticket on the Grand Trunk Railroad to perdition, stop- 
ping at no depot until they get to the eternal smash-up! 
Those are the fortunate and divinely-blessed young men 
who have to breakfast early and take supper late, and 
have the entire interregnum filled up with work that blis- 
ters the hands, and makes the legs ache and the brain 
weary. There is no chance for the morals of that young 
man who has plenty of money and no occupation. You 
may go from Central Park to the Battery, or you may 
go from Fulton Street Ferry, Brooklyn, out to South 
Bushwick, or out to Hunter's Point, or out to Gowanus, 
and you will not find one young man of that kind who 
lias not already achieved his ruin, or who is not on the 
way thereto at the rate of sixty miles the hour. Those are 
not the favored and divinely-blessed young men who 
come and go as they will, and who have their pocket- 
ease full of the best cigars, and who dine at Delmonico's, 
and who dress in the tip- top of fashion, their garments 
ft little tighter or looser or broader striped than others, 
their mustaches twisted with stiffer cosmetic, and their 
hair redolent with costly pomatum, and have their hat 
set farthest over on the right ear, and who have boots 
fitting the foot with exquisite torture, and who have 
handkerchief soaked with musk, and patchouli, and white 
rose, and new-mown hay, and "balm of a thousand flow- 
ers;" but those are the fortunate young men who have 
to work hard for a living. Give a young man plenty of 
wines, and plenty of cigars, and plenty of fine horses, 
and Satan has no anxiety about that man's coming out 
at his place. He ceases to watch him, only giving direc- 
tions about his reception when he shall arrive at the end 
of the journey. If, on the night of our exploration, I 
had called the roll of all the laboring men of these cities, 
I would have received no answer, for the simple reason 



74 WHOM I SAW, ADD WHOM 1 MISSED. 

they were not there to answer. I was not more surprised 
at the people whom I saw there than I was surprised at 
the people whom I missed. Oh ! man, if you have an 
occupation by which you are wearied every night of your 
life, thank God, for it is the mightiest preservative 
against evil. 

But by that time the clock of old Trinity Church was 
striking one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 
ten, eleven, twelve — midnight ! And with the police and 
two elders of my church we sat down at the table in the 
galleries and looked off upon the vortex of death. The 
music in full blast; the dance in wildest whirl; the wine 
foaming to the lip of the glass. Midnight on earth is 
midnoon in hell. All the demons of the pit were at 
that moment holding high carnival. The blue calcium, 
light suggested the burning brimstone of the pit. Seated 
there, at that hour, in that awful place, you ask me, as I 
have frequently been asked, "What were the emotions 
that went through your heart?" And I shall give the 
rest of my morning's sermon to telling you how I felt. 

First of all, as at no death-bed or railroad disaster did 
I feel an overwhelming sense of pity. Why were we 
there as Christian explorers, while those lost souls were 
there as participators ? If they had enjoyed the same 
healthful and Christian surroundings which we have had 
all our days, and we had been thrown amid the contamin- 
ations which have destroyed them, the case would have 
been the reverse, and they would have been the specta- 
tors and we the actors in that awful tragedy of the 
damned. As I sat there I could not keep back the 
tears — tears of gratitude to God for his protecting 
grace— tears of compassion for those who had fallen so 
low. The difference in moral navigation had been the 
difference in the way the wind blew. The wind of temp- 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 



7b 



tation drove them on the rocks. The wind of God's 
mercy drove us out on a fair sea. There are men and 
women so merciless in their criticism of the fallen that 
you might think that God had made them in an especial 
mold, and that they have no capacity for evil, and yet if 
they had been subjected to the same allurements, instead 
of stopping at the up- town haunts of iniquity, they 
would at this hour have been wallowing amid the hor- 
rors of Arch Block, or shrieking with delirium tremens 
in the cell of a police station. Instead of boasting over 
your purity and your integrity and your sobriety, you 
had better be thanking God for his grace, lest some time 
the Lord should let you loose and you find out how 
much better you are than others naturally. I will take 
the best-tempered man in this house, the most honest 
man in this city, and I will venture the opinion in regard 
to him that, surround him with all the adequate circum- 
stances of temptation, and the Lord let him loose, he 
would become a thief, a gambler, a sot, a rake, a wharf- 
rat. Instead of boasting over our superiority, and over 
the fact that there is no capacity in us of evil, I would 
rather have for my epitaph that one word which Duncan 
Matthewson, the Scotch evangelist, ordered chiseled on 
his tombstone, the name, and the one word, "Kept." 

Again: Seated in that gallery of death, and looking 
out on that maelstrom of iniquity, I thought to myself, 
"There! that young man was once the pride of the city 
home. Paternal care watched him; maternal love bent 
over him ; sisterly affection surrounded him. He wa, 
once taken to the altar and consecrated in the name 
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy 
Ghost; but he went away. This very moment,' y 
I thought to myself, " there are hearts aching for that 
young man's return. Father and mother are sitting up 



for him." You say, "He lias a night-key, and he caia 
get in without their help. Why do not those parents 
go sound to sleep?" What! Is there any sleep for 
parents who suspect a son is drifting up and down amid 
the dissipations of a great city? They may weep, they 
may pray, they may wring their hands, but sleep they 
cannot. Ah! they have done and suffered too much for 
that boy to give him up now. They turn up the light 
and look at the photograph of him when he was young 
and untempted. They stand at the window to see if he 
is coming up the street. They hear the watchman's 
rattle, but no sound of returning boy. I felt that night 
as if I could put my hand on the shoulder of that young 
man, and, with a voice that would sound all through 
those temples of sin, say to him, "Go home, young man:; 
your father is -waiting for you. Your mother is waiting 
for you. God is waiting for you. All heaven is wait- 
ing for you. Go home! By the tears wept over youi 
waywardness, by the prayers offered for your salvation,, 
by the midnight watching over you when you had scarlet, 
fever and diphtheria, by the blood of the Son of God, by 
the judgment day when you must give answer for what 
you have been doing here to-night, go home!" But I dici 
not say this, lest it interfere with my work, and I waited 
to get on this platform, where, perhaps, instead of saving 
one young man, God helping me, I might save a thousand 
young men ; and the cry of alarm which I suppressed 
that night, I let loose to-day in the hearing of this 
people. 

Seated in that gallery of death, and looking off upon 
the destruction, I bethought myself also, "These are 
the fragments of broken homes." A home is a com- 
plete thing, and if one member of it wander off, then the 
home is broken. And sitting there, I said: "Here thej? 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 



77 



are, broken family altars, broken wedding-rings, broken 
vows, broken anticipations, broken hearts." And, as I 
looked off, the dance became wilder and more unre- 
strained, until it seemed as if the floor broke through 
and the revelers were plunged into a depth from which 
they may never rise, and all these broken families came 
around the brink and seemed to cry out: " Come back, 
father! Come back, mother! Come back, my son! Come 
back, my daughter ! Come back, my sister !" But no voices 
returned, and the sound of the feet of the dancers grew 
fainter and fainter, and stopped, and there was thick 
darkness. And I said, "What does all this mean?" 
And there came up a great hiss of whispering voices, 
saying, " This is the second death!" 

But seated there that night, looking off upon that 
scene of death, I bethought myself also, u This is only a 
miserable copy of European dissipations." In London 
they have what they call the Argyle, the Cremorne, the 
Strand, the beer-gardens, and a thousand places of 
infamy, and it seems to be the ambition of bad people 
in this country to copy those foreign dissipations. Toady- 
ism when it bows to foreign pretense and to foreign 
equipage and to foreign title is despicable; but toadyism 
is more despicable when it bows to foreign vice. Why, 
you might as well steal the pillow-case of a small-pox 
hospital, or the shovels of a scavenger's cart, or the 
coffin of a leper, as to make theft of these foreign plagues. 
If you want to destroy the people, have some originality 
of destruction ; have an American trap to catch the 
bodies and souls of men, instead of infringing on the 
patented inventions of European iniquity. 

Seated there that night, I also felt that if the good 
people of our cities knew what was going on in these 
haunts of iniquity, they would endure it no longer. 



The foundations of city life are rotten with iniquity, 
and if the foundations give way the whole structure 
must crumble. If iniquity progresses in the next one 
hundred years in the same ratio that it has pro- 
gressed in the century now closed, there will not be 
a vestige of moral or religious influence left. It is only 
a question of subtraction and addition. If the people 
knew how the virus is spreading they would stop it. I 
think the time has come for action. I wish that the next 
Mayor of New York whether he be Augustus Schell or 
Edward Cooper, may rise up to the height of this posi- 
tion. Revolution is what we want, and that revolution 
would begin to-morrow if the moral and Christian peo 
pie of our cities knew of the fires that slumber beneath 
them. Once in a while a glorious city missionary or 
reformer like Mr. Brace or Mr. Yan Meter tells to a 
well-dressed audience in church the troubles that lie 
under our roaring metropolis, and the conventional 
church-goer gives his five dollars for bread, or gives his 
fifty dollars to help support a ragged school, and then 
goes home feeling that the work is done. Oh! my 
friends, the work will not be accomplished until by the 
force of public opinion the officers of the law shall be 
compelled to execute the law. We are told that the 
twenty-five hundred police of New York cannot put 
down the five or six hundred dens of infamy, to say 
nothing of the gambling-houses and the unlicensed grog- 
shops. I reply, swear me in as a special police and give 
me two hundred police for two nights, and I would 
break up all the leading haunts of iniquity in these two 
cities, and arrest all their leaders and send such conster- 
nation in the smaller places that they would shut up of 
themselves! I do not think I should be afraid of law* 
suits for damages for false imprisonment. What we 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 



79 



want in these cities is a Stonewall Jackson's raid through 
all the places of iniquity. I was persuaded by what I 
saw on that night of my exploration that the keepers of 
all these haunts of iniquity are as afraid as they are of 
death of the police star, and the police club, and the 
police revolver. Hence, I declare that the existence of 
these abominations are to be charged either to police 
cowardice or to police complicity. 

At the close of our journey that night, we got in the 
carriage, and we came out on Broadway, and as we came 
down the street everything seemed silent save the clatter- 
ing hoofs and the wheels of our own conveyance. Look- 
ing down the long line of gaslights, the pavement seemed 
very solitary. The great sea of metropolitan life had 
ebbed, leaving a dry beach ! New York asleep ! No ! no ! 
Burglary wide awake. Libertinism wide awake. Mur- 
der wide awake. Ten thousand city iniquities wide 
awake. The click of the decanters in the worst hours of 
the debauch. The harvest of death full. Eternal woe 
the reaper. 

What is that? Trinity clock striking, one — two. 
u Good night," said the officers of the law, and I re- 
sponded " good night," for they had been very kind, and 
very generous and very helpful to us. "Goodnight." 
And yet, was there ever an adjective more misapplied ? 
Good night! Why, there was no expletive enough 
scarred and blasted to describe that night. Black night. 
Forsaken night. Night of man's wickedness and woman's 
overthrow. Night of awful neglect on the part of those 
who might help but do not. For many of those whom 
we had been watching, everlasting night. No hope. 
No rescue. No God. Black night of darkness forever. 
As far off as hell is from heaven was that night distant 
from being a good night. Oh, my friends, what are you 



80 



WHOM I SAW, A1TD WHOM I MISSED. 



going to do in this matter ? Punish the people ? That 
is not my theory. Prevent the people, warn the people, 
hinder the people before they go down. The first phi- 
lanthropist this country ever knew was Edward Living- 
ston, and he wrote these remarkable words in 1S33: 

" As prevention in the diseases of the body is less painful, less ex* 
pensive, and more efficacious than the most skillful cure, so in the 
moral maladies of society, to arrest the vicious before the profligacy 
assumes the shape of crime, to take away from the poor the cause or 
pretense of relieving themselves by fraud or theft, to reform them by 
education, and make their own industry contribute to their support, 
although difficult and expensive, will be found more effectual inthe 
suppression of offenses, aud more economical, than the best organized 
system of punishment." 

Next Sabbath morning I shall tell you of my second 
night of exploration. I have only opened the door of 
this great subject with which I hope to stir the cities. 
I have begun, and, God helping me, I will go through. 
"Whoever else may be crowded or kept standing, or kept 
outside the doors, I charge the trustees and the ushers 
of this church that they give full elbow-room to all these 
journalists, since each one is another church five times, 
or ten times, or twenty times larger than this august 
assemblage, and it is by the printing-press that the Gos- 
pel of the Son of God is to be yet preached to all the 
world. May the blessing of the Lord God come down 
upon all the editors, and all the reporters, and all tli6 
compositors, and all the proof-readers, and all the type- 
setters ! 

But, my friends, before the iniquities of our cities 
are closed, my tongue may be silent in death, and 
many who are here this morning may have gone so far 
in sin they cannot get back. You have sometimes been 
walking on the banks of a river, and you have seen a 
man struggling in the water, and you have thrown off 



WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 81 

your coat and leaped in for the rescue. So this morning 
I throw off the robe of pulpit conventionality, and I 
plunge in for your drowning soul. I have no cross 
words for you. I have only cross words for those who 
would destroy you. I am glad God has not put in my 
hand any one of the thunderbolts of His power, lest I 
might be tempted to hurl it at those who are plotting 
your ruin. I do not give you the tip end of the long 
fingers of the left hand, but I take your hand, hot with 
the fever of indulgences and trembling with last night's 
debauch, into both my hands, and give the heartiest 
grip of invitation and welcome. " Oh," you say, " you 
would not shake hands with me if you met me." I 
would. Try me at the foot of this platform and see if I 
will not. I have sometimes said that I would like to die 
with my hand in the hand of my family and my kin- 
dred; but I revoke that wish this morning and say I 
v/ould like to die with my hand in the hand of a return- 
ing sinner, when, with God's help, I am trying to pull 
him up into the glorious liberty of the Gospel. I would 
like that to be my last work on earth. Oh! my brother, 
dome back! Do you know that God made Richard Bax- 
ters and John Bunyans and Robert Newtons out of such 
as you are? Come back! and wash in the deep fountain 
of a Savior's mercy. I do not give you a cup, or a chal- 
ice, or a pitcher with a limited supply to effect your ab- 
lutions. I point you to the five oceans of God's mercy. 
Oh! that the Atlantic and Pacific surges of divine for- 
giveness might roll over your soul. I do not say to you, 
as we said to the officers of the law when we left them 
on Broadway, "Good night." Oh, no. But, as the 
glorious sun of Gqd's forgiveness rides on toward the 
mid heavens, ready to submerge you in warmth" and 
light and love, I bid you good morning! Morning of 
6 



82 WHOM I SAW, AND WHOM I MISSED. 

peace for all your troubles. Morning of liberation ftv 
all your incarcerations. Morning of resurrection for 
your soul buried in sin. Good morning! Morning for 
the resuscitated household that has been waiting for 
your return. Morning for the cradle and the crib 
already disgraced with being that of a drunkard's child. 
Morning for the daughter that has trudged off to hard 
work because you did not take care of home. Morning 
for the wife who at forty or fifty years has the wrinkled 
face, and the stooped shoulder, and the white hair. Morn- 
ing for one. Morning for all. Good morning ! In 
God's name, good morning. 

In our last dreadful war the Federals and the Con- 
federates were encamped on opposite sides of the Rappa- 
hannock, and one morning the brass band of the North- 
ern troops played the national air, and all the Northern 
troops cheered and cheered. Then on the opposite side 
of the Rappahannock the brass band of the Confederates 
played " My Maryland" and " Dixie," and then all the 
Southern troops cheered and cheered. But after awhile 
one of the bands struck up " Home, Sweet Home," and 
the band on the opposite side of the river took up the 
strain, and when the tune was done the Confederates 
and the Federals all together united, as the tears rolled 
down their cheeks, in one great huzza! huzza! Well, 
my friends, heaven comes very near to-day. It is only 
a stream that divides us — the narrow stream of death — 
and the voices there and the voices here seem to com- 
mingle, and we join trumpets, and hosannahs, and halle- 
lujahs, and the chorus of the united song of earth and 
heaven is, " Home, Sweet Home." Home of bright 
domestic circle on earth. Home of forgiveness in the 
great heart of God. Home of eternal rest in heaven. 
Home! Home! Home! 



CHAPTER V. 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 

The destruction of the poor is their poverty.— Proverbs x: M. 

On an island nine miles long by two and a half wide 
stands the largest city on this continent — a city mightiest 
for virtue and for vice. Before I get through with this 
series of Sabbath morning discourses, I shall show you 
the midnoon of its magnificent progress and philan- 
thropy, as well as the midnight of its crime and sin. 
Twice in every twenty-four hours our City Hall and old 
Trinity clocks strike twelve — once while business and 
art are in full blast, and once while iniquity is doing its 
uttermost. Both stories must be told. It is pleasanter 
to put on a plaster than to thrust in a probe; but it is 
absurd to propose remedies for disease until we have 
taken a diagnosis of that disease. The patient may 
squirm and cringe, and fight back, and resist; but the 
surgeon must go on. Before I get through with these 
Sabbath morning sermons, I shall make you all smile at 
the beautiful things I will say about the grandeur and 
beneficence of this cluster of cities; but my work now is 
excavation and exposure. I have as much amusement 
as any man of my profession can afford to indulge in at 
any one time, in seeing some of the clerical " reformers " 
of this day mount their war- charter, dig in their spurs, 
and with glittering lance dash down upon the iniquities 
of cities that have been three or four thousand years 
dead. These men will corner an old sinner of twenty or 
thirty centuries ago, and scalp him, and hang him, and 



84 



UNDEB THE POLICE LANTERN. 



cut him to pieces, and then say: " Oh! what great things 
have been done." With amazing prowess, they throw 
sulphur at Sodom, and fire at Gomorrah, and worms at 
Herod, and pitch J ezebel over the wall, but wipe off theii 
gold spectacles, and put on their best kid gloves, and 
unroll their morocco-covered sermon, and look bashful 
when they begin to speak about the sins of our day, as 
though it were a shame even to mention them. The 
hypocrites! They are afraid of the libertines and the 
men who drink too much, in their churches, and those 
who grind the face of the poor. Better, I say, clear out 
all our audiences from pulpit to storm-door, until no one 
is left but the sexton, and he staying merely to lock up, 
than to have the pulpit afraid of the pew. The time has 
come when the living Judases and Herods and Jezebels 
are to be arraigned. There is one thing I like about a 
big church: a dozen people may get mad about the truth 
and go off, and you don't know they are gone until about 
the next year. The cities standing on the ground are 
the cities to be reformed, and not the Herculaneums 
buried under volcanic ashes, or the cities of the plain 
fifty feet under the Dead Sea. 

I unroll the scroll of new revelations. With city mis- 
sionary, and the poliee of New York and Brooklyn, I 
have seen some things that I have not yet stated in this 
series of discourses on the night side of city life. The 
night of which I speak now is darker than any other. 
No glittering chandelier, no blazing mirror adorns it. It 
is the long, deep exhaustive night of city pauperism. 
"We won't want a carriage to-night," said the detectives. 
"A carriage would hinder us In our work; a carriage 
going through the streets where we are going would only 
bring out the people to see what was the matter." So on 
foot we went up the dark lanes of poverty Everything 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



85 



revolting to eye, and ear, and nostril. Population un- 
washed, uncombed. Rooms unventilated. Three mid- 
nights overlapping each other — midnight of the natural 
world, midnight of crime, midnight of pauperism. Stairs 
oozing with filth. The inmates, nine-tenths of the jour- 
ney to their final doom, traveled. They started in some 
unhappy home of the city or of the country. They 
plunged into the shambles of death within ten minutes' 
walk of the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York, and then 
came on gradually down until they have arrived at the 
Fourth Ward. When they move out of the Fourth 
Ward they will move into Bellevue Hospital; when they 
move out of Bellevue Hospital they will move to Black- 
well's Island; when they move from Blackwell's Island 
they will move to the Potter's Field; when they move 
from the Potter's Field they will move into hell! Belle- 
vue Hospital and Blackwell's Island take care of 18,000 
patients in one year. As we passed on, the rain pattering 
on the street and dripping around the doorways made 
the night more dismal. I said, " Now let the police go 
ahead," and they flashed their light, and there were four- 
teen persons trying to sleep, or sleeping, in one room- 
Some on a bundle of straw; more with nothing under 
them and nothing over them. "Oh!" you say, "this is 
exceptional." It is not. Thousands lodge in that way. 
One hundred and seventy thousand families living in 
tenement houses, in more or less inconvenience, more 01 
less squalor. Half a million people in New York city — 
five hundred thousand people living in tenement-houses ; 
multitudes of these people dying by inches. Of the 
twenty- four thousand that die yearly in New York four- 
teen thousand die in tenement-houses. No lungs that 
God ever made could for a long while stand the at- 
mosphere we breathed for a little while. In the Fourth 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



Ward, 17,000 people within the space of thirty acres. 
You say, "Why not clear them out? Why not, as at 
Liverpool, where 20,000 of these people were cleared out 
of the city, and the city saved from a moral pestilence, 
and the people themselves from being victimized?" 
There will be no reformation for these cities until the 
tenement -house system is entirely broken up. The city 
authorities will have to buy farms, and will have to put 
these people on those farms, and compel them to work. 
By the strong arm of the law, by the police lantern con- 
joined with Christian charity, these places must be ex- 
posed and must be uprooted. Those places in London 
which have become historical for crowded populations — 
St. Giles, Whitechapel, Holborn, the Strand — have their 
match at last in the Sixth Ward, Eleventh Ward, Four- 
teenth Ward, Seventeenth Ward of New York. No 
purification for our cities until each family shall have 
something of the privacy and seclusion of a home circle. 
As long as they herd like beasts, they will be beasts. 

Hark! What is that heavy thud on the wet pavement? 
Why, that is a drunkard who has fallen, his head striking 
against the street — striking very hard. The police try 
to lift him up. Ring the bell for the city ambulance. 
No. Only an outcast, only a tatterdemalion — a heap of 
sores and rags. But look again. Perhaps he has some 
marks of manhood on his face; perhaps he may have 
been made in the image of God; perhaps he has a soul 
which will live after the dripping heavens of this dismal 
night have been rolled together as a scroll; perhaps he 
may have been died for, by a king; perhaps he may yet 
be a conqueror charioted in the splendors of heavenly 
welcome. But we must pass on. We cross the street, 
and, the rain beating in his face, lies a man entirely un- 
conscious. I wonder where he came from. I wonder if 



UNDEB THE POLICE LANTERN. 



6l 



any one is waiting for him. I wonder if he was ever 

rocked in a Christian cradle. I wonder if that gashed 
and bloated forehead was ever kissed bv a fond mother's 
lips. I wonder if he is stranded for eternity. But we 
cannot stop. We passed on down, the air loaded with 
blasphemies and obscenities, until I heard something 
that astounded me more than all. I said, "What is 
that?" It was a loud, enthusiastic Christian song, rolling 
out on the stormy air. I went up to the window and 
looked in. There was a room filled with all sorts of 
people, some standing, some kneeling, some sitting, some 
singing, some praying, some shaking hands as if to give 
encouragement, some wringing their hands as though 
over a wasted life. What was this? Ohl it was Jerry 
McAuley's glorious Christian mission. There he stood, 
himself snatched from death, snatching others from death. 
That scene paid for all the nausea and fatigue of the mid- 
night exploration. Our tears fell with the rain — tears 
of sympathy for a good man's work; tears of gratitude 
to God that one lifeboat had been launched on that wild 
sea of sin and death ; tears of hope that there might be 
lifeboats enough to take off all the wrecked, and, that, 
after a while, the Church of God, rousing from its fas- 
tidiousness, might lay hold with both hands of this 
work, which must be done if our cities are not to go 
down in darkness and fire and blood. 

This cluster of cities have more difficulty than any 
other cities in all the land. You must understand that 
within the last twenty-eight years five millions of for- 
eign population have arrived at our port. The most of 
those who had capital and means passed on to the greater 
openings at the West. Many however, stayed and have be- 
come our best citizens, and best members of our churches; 
but we know also that, tarrying within our borders, there 



88 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTEBN. 



has been a vast criminal population ready to be manipu- 
lated by the demagogue, ready to hatch out all kinds of 
criminal desperation. The vagrancy and the beggary 
of our cities, augmented by the very worst populations 
of London and Edinburg, and Glasgow, and Berlin, and 
Belfast, and Dublin and Cork. "We had enough vaga- 
bondage, and enough turpitude in our American cities 
before* this importation of sin was dumped at Castib 
Garden. Oh! this pauperism, when wilt ii ever be alle- 
viated? How much wc saw! How much we could not 
see! How much none but the eye of Almighty God 
vvill ever see! Flash the lantern of the police around to 
that station-house. There they come up, the poor crea- 
tures, tipping their torn hats, saying, " Night's lodging, 
sir?" And then they are waived away into the dormi- 
tories. One hundred and forty thousand such lodgers 
in the city of New York every year. The atmosphere 
anbearable. What pathos in the fact that many families 
turned out of doors because they cannot pay their rent, 
come in here for shelter, and after struggling for decency, 
and struggling for a good name, are flung into this 
loathsome pool. The respectable and the reprobate. In- 
nocent childhood and vicious old age. The Lord's poor 
and Satan's desperadoes. There is no report of alms- 
house and missionary that will ever tell the story of New 
York and Brooklyn pauperism. It will take a larger 
book, a book with more ponderous lids, a book made of 
paper other than that of earthly manufacture. The book 
of God's remembrance! At my basement door we aver- 
age between fifty and one hundred calls every day for 
help. Beside that, in my reception room, from 7 o'clock 
in the morning until 10 o'clock at night, there is a con- 
tinuous procession of people applying for aid, making a 
demand which an old-fashioned silken purse, caught at 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



the middle with a ring, the wealth of Yanderbilt in one 
end and the wealth of William B. Astor in the other end, 
could not satisfy. Of course, I speak of those men's 
wealth while they lived. We have more money now than 
they have since they have their shroud on. But even 
the shroud and the grave, we find, are to be contested for. 
Cursed be the midnight jackals of St. Mark's Church- 
yard! But I must go on with the fact that the story of 
Brooklyn and New York pauperism needs to be written 
in ink, black, blue and red — blue for the stripes, red for 
the blood, black for the infamy. In this cluster of cities 
20,000 people supported by the bureau for the outdoor 
sick; 20,000 people taken care of by the city hospitals; 
70,000 provided for by private charity ; 80,000 taken care 
of by reformatory institutions and prisons. Hear it, ye 
churches, and pour out 3^our benefaction. Hear it, you 
ministers of religion, and utter words of sympathy for 
the suffering, and thunders of indignation against the 
cause of all this wretchedness. Hear it, mayoralties and 
judicial bench, and constabularies. Unless we wake up, 
the Lord will scourge us as the yellow fever never 
scourged New Orleans, as the plague never smote Lon- 
don, as the earthquake never shook Carraccas, as the fire 
aever overwhelmed Sodom. I wish I could throw a bomb- 
shell of arousal into every city hall, meeting-house and 
cathedral on the continent. The factories at Fall Kiver 
and at Lowell sometimes stop for lack of demand, and for 
lack of workmen, but this million-roomed factory of sin 
and death never stops, never slackens a band, never ar- 
rests a spindle. The great wheel of that factory keeps 
on turning, not by such floods as those of the Merrimac or 
the Connecticut, but crimson floods rushing forth from 
the groggeries, and the wine-cellars, and the drinking, 
saloons of the land, and the faster the floods rush the 



90 UNDER THE POLlOJfi LANTERN. 

faster the wheel turns; and the band of that wheel is 
woven from broken heart-strings, and every time the 
wheel turns, from the mouth of the mill come forth 
blasted estates, squalor, vagrancy, crime, sin, woe — 
individual woe, municipal woe, national woe — and the 
creaking and the rumbling of the wheels are the shrieks 
and the groans of men and women lost for two worlds, 
and the cry is, "Bring on more fortunes,more homes, more 
States, more cities, to make up the awful grist of this stu- 
pendous mill." "Oh," you say, "the wretchedness and 
the sin of the city will go out from lack of material after 
awhile." No, it will not. The police lantern flashes in 
another direction. Here come 15,000 shoeless, hatless, 
homeless children of the street, in this cluster of cities. 
They are the reserve corps of this great army of wretch- 
edness and crime that are dropping down into the Morgue, 
the East river, the Potter's Field, the prison. A phi- 
lanthropist has estimated that if these children were 
placed in a great procession, double-file, three feet apart, 
they would make a procession eleven miles long. Oh! 
what a pale, coughing, hunger-bitten, sin -cursed, opthal- 
mic throng — the tigers, the adders, the scorpions ready 
to bite and sting society, which they take to be their 
natural enemy. Howard Mission has saved many. Chil- 
dren's Aid Society has saved many. Industrial Schools 
have saved many. One of these societies transported 
30,000 children from the streets of our cities, to farms 
at the "West, by a stratagem of charity, turning them from 
vagrancy into useful citizenship, and out of 21,000 chil- 
dren thus transported from the cities . to farms only 
twelve turned out badly. But still the reserve corps of 
sin and wretchedness marches on. There is the regi- 
ment of boot-blacks. They seem jolly, but they have 
more sorrow than many an old man has had. All kinds 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



91 



of temptation. Working on, making two or three dol- 
lars a week. At fifteen years of age sixty years old in 
sin. Pitching pennies at the street corners. Smoking 
fragments of castaway cigars. Tempted by the gamblers. 
Destroyed by the top gallery in the low play house 
Blacking shoes their regular business. Between times 
blackening their morals. "Shine your boots, sir?" they 
call out with merry voices, but there is a tremor in their 
accentuation. Who cares for them? You put your foot 
thoughtlessly on their stand, and you whistled or 
smoked, when God knows you might have given them 
one kind word. They never had one. Whoever prayed 
for a bootblack? Who, finding the wind blowing under 
the short jacket, or reddening his bare neck, ever aflked 
him to warm ? Who, when he is wronged out of his ter 
cents, demands justice for him? God have mercy or 
the bootblacks. The newsboys, another regiment — the 
smartest boys in all the city. At work at four o'clock in 
the morning. At half-past three, by unnatural vigilance, 
awake themselves, or pulled at by rough hands. In the 
dawn of the day standing before the folding-rooms of 
the great newspapers, taking the wet, damp sheets over 
their arms, and against their chests already shivering 
with the cold. Around the bleak ferries, and up and 
down the streets on the cold days, singing as merrily as 
though it were a Christmas carol; making half a cent 
on each paper, some of them working fourteen hours for 
fifty cents! Nine thousand of these newsboys applied 
for aid at the Newsboys ' Lodging-house on Park place, 
New York, in one year. About one thousand of them 
laid up in the savings bank connected with that institu- 
tion, a little more than $3,000. But still this great 
army marches on, hungry, cold, sick, toward an early 
grave, or a quick prison. I tell you there is nothing 



92 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



that so moves my compassion as on a cold winter morn- 
ing to see one of these newsboys, a fourth clad, newspa- 
pers on his arm that he cannot seem to sell, face or handa 
bleeding from a fall, or rubbing his knee to relieve it 
from having been hit on the side of a car, as some "gen- 
tleman," with furs around his neck and gauntlets lined 
with lamb's wool, shoved him off, saying: "You miser- 
able rati" Yet hawking the papers through the streets, 
papers full of railroad accidents and factory explosions, 
and steamers foundering at sea in the last storm, yet say- 
ing nothing, and that which is to him worse than all the 
other calamities and all the other disasters, the calamity 
that he was ever born at all. Flash the police lantern 
around, and let us see these poor lads cuddled up under 
the stairway. Look at them! Now for a little whila 
they are unconscious of all their pains and aches, and of 
the storm and darkness, once in awhile* struggling in 
their dreams as though some one were trying to take tho 
papers away from them. Standing there I wondered if 
it would be right to wish that they might never wake up. 
God pity them! There are other regiments in this 
reserve corps — regiments of rag-pickers, regiments of 
match-sellers, regiments of juvenile vagrants. Oh! if 
these lads are not saved, what is to become of our cities? 

But I said to the detective, "I have had enough of this 
to-night; let us go." But by that time I had lost the 
points of the compass, for we had gone down stairways 
and up stairways, and wandered down through this street 
and that street, and all I knew was that I was bounded 
on the north by want, and on the south by squalor, and 
on the east by crime, and on the west by despair. Tha 
fact was that everything had opened before us; for these 
detectives pretended to be searching for a thief, and they 
took me along as the man who had lost the property I 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 93 

The stratagem was . theirs, not mine. But I thought 
coming home that rainy night, I wished I could make 
pass before my congregation, as in a panorama, all that 
scene of suffering, that I might stir their pity and arouse 
their beneficence, and make them the everlasting friends 
of city evaDgelization. "Why," you say, "I had no 
idea things were so bad. Why, I get in my carriage at 
Forty-fifth street and I ride clear down to my banking- 
house in Wall street, and I don't see anything." No, 
you do not want to see! The King and the Parliament 
of England did not know that there were thirty-six bar- 
rels of gunpowder rolled into the vaults under the Par- 
liament House. They did not know Guy Fawkes had 
his touchwood and matches all ready — ready to dash the 
Government of England into atoms. The conspiracy 
was revealed, however. I tell you I have explored the 
vaults of city life, and I am here this morning to tell 
you that there are deathful and explosive influences under 
all our cities, ready to destroy us with a great moral con- 
vulsion. Some men say: "I don't see anything of thw, 
and I am not interested in it." You ought to be. You 
remind me of a man who has been shipwrecked with a 
thousand others. He happens to get up on the shore, 
and the others are all down in the surf. He goes up in 
a fisherman's cabin, and sits down to warm himself. The 
fisherman says: "Oh! this won't do. Come out and 
help me to get these others out of the surf." "Oh, no!" 
says the man ; "it's my business now to warm myself." 
"But," says the fisherman, "these men are dying; are 
you not going to give them help?" "Oh, no! I've got 
ashore myself, and I must warm myself!" That is what 
people are d ^ ig in the church to-day. A great multi- 
tude are out in the surf of sin and death, going down 
forever; but men sit by the fire of the church, warming 



&4 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTERN. 



their Christian graces, warming their fait&, warming 
their hope for heaven, and I say, "Come out, and wort 
to-day for Christ." "Oh, no," they say; "my sublime 
duty is to warm myself!" Such men as that will not 
come within ten thousand miles of heaven! Help for- 
eign missions. Those of my own blood are toiling in 
foreign lands with Christ's Word. Send a million dol- 
lars for the salvation of the heathen — that is right — but 
look after the heathen also around the mouths of the 
Hudson and East rivers. Send missionaries if you will 
to Borioboola-gha, but send missionaries also through 
Houston street, Mercer street, Greene street, Navy street, 
Fulton street, and all around about Brooklyn Atlantic 
Docks. If you will, send quilted coverlets to Central 
Africa to keep the natives warm in summer-time, and 
send ice-cream freezers to Greenland, but do have a little 
common sense and practical charity, and help these cities 
here that want hats, want clothes, want shoes, want fire, 
want medicines, want instruction, want the Gospel, want 
Christ. 

I must adjourn to another Sabbath morning much of 
what I have ^ say in regard to this city midnight ex- 
pi oration, and also the proposing of remedies; for I am 
not the man to stand here Sabbath by Sabbath talking of 
ills when I have no panacea. There is an almighty res- 
cue for the city, and in due time I will speak of these 
things. 

You have seen often a magic lantern. You have seen 
the room darkened, and then the magic lantern throwing 
a picture on the canvas. "Well, this morning I wish I 
could darken these three great emblazoned windows, and 
have all the doors darkened, and then I could bring out 
two magic lanterns-— the magic lantern of the home, and 
the magic lantern of the police. Here is the magic lau- 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTEKN. 



£5 



tern of the home. Look now upon the canvas. Mother 
putting the little children to bed, trying to hush the 
frisky and giggling group for the evening prayer ; their 
foreheads against the counterpane, they are trying to 
say their evening prayer; their tongue is so crooked 
that none but God and the mother can understand it. 
Then the children are lifted into bed, and they are cov- 
ered up to the chin. Then the mother gives them a warm 
good-night kiss, and leaves them to the guardian angels 
that spread wings of canopy over the trundle-bed. Mid- 
night lantern of the police. Look now on the canvas. 
A boy kenneled for the night underneath the stairway 
in a hall through which the wind sweeps, or lying on the 
cold ground. He had no parentage. He was pitched 
into the world by a merciless incognito. He dees not 
go to bed; he has no bed. His cold fingers thrust through 
his matted hair his only pillow. He did not sup last 
night; he will not breakfast to-morrow. An outcast; a 
ragamuffin. He did not say his prayers when he retired ; 
he knows no prayer; he never heard the name of God or 
Christ, except as something to swear by. The wings 
over him, not the wings of angels, but the dark, bat-like 
wings of penury and want Magic lantern of the home. 
Look now on the canvas. Family gathered around the 
argand burner. Father, feet on ottoman, mother sewing 
a picturesque pattern. Two children pretending to study, 
but chiefly watching other children who are in unre- 
strained romp, so many balls of fun and frolic in full 
bounce from room to room. Background of pictures 
and upholstery and musical instrument, from which jew- 
eled fingers sweep "Home, Sweet Home." Magic lantern 
of the police. Look now on the canvas. A group in- 
toxicated and wrangling, cursing God, cursing each 
other; the past all shame, the future all suffering. Chil- 
dren fleeing from the missile flung by a father's hand. 



96 



UN DEE THE POLICE LANTERN. 



Fragments of a chair propped against the wall. Frag- 
ments of a pitcher standing on the mantle. A pile of 
refuse food brought in from some kitchen, torn by the 
human swine plunging into the trough. Magic lantern 
of the home. Look now upon the canvas. A Christian 
daughter has just died. Carriages rolling up to the 
door in sympathy. Flowers in crowns and anchors and 
harps covering the beautiful casket, the silver plate 
marked, "aged 18." Funeral services intoned amid the 
richly-shawled and gold-braceleted. Long procession 
going out this way to unparalleled Greenwood to the 
beautiful family plot where the sculptor will raise the 
monument of burnished Aberdeen with the inscription, 
''She is not dead, but sleepeth." Oh! blessed is that home 
which has a consecrated Christian daughter, whether on 
earth or in heaven. Magic lantern of the police. Look 
now on the canvas. A poor waif of the street has just 
expired. Did she have any doctor? No. Did she have 
any medicine? No. Did she have any hands to close 
her eyes and fold her arms in death? No. Are there 
no garments in the house fit to wrap her in for the tomb? 
None. Those worn-out shoes will not do for these feel 
in their last journey. Where are all the good Christians ? 
Oh! some of them are rocking-chaired, in morning 
gowns, in tears over Bulwer Lytton's account of the last 
days of Pompeii; they are so sorry for* that girl that got 
petrified ! Others of the Christians are in church, kneel- 
ing on a soft rug, praying for the forlorn Hottentots ! 
Come, call in the Coroner — call in the Charity Oommis. 
sioner. The carpenter unrolls the measuring-tape, and 
decides she will need a box five and a half feet long. 
Two men lift her into the box, lift the box into the 
wagon, and it starts for the Potter's Field. The excavation 
is not large enough for the box, and the men are in a 



UNDER THE POLICE LANTEKN. 



97 



hurry, and one of them gets on the lid and cranehes it 
down to its place in the ground. Stop! Wait for the 
city missionary until he can come and read a chapter, or 
say, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust." "No," say the men 
of the spade, "we have three or four more cases just 
like this to bury before night." "Well," I say, "how, 
then, is the grave to be filled up?" Christ suggests a 
way. Perhaps it had better be filled up with stones. 
"Let those who are without sin come and cast a stone at 
her," until the excavation is filled. Then the wagon 
rolls off, and I see a form coming slowly across the Pot- 
ter's Field. He walks very slowly, as his feet hurt. 
He comes to that grave, and there he stands all day and 
all night, and I come out and I accost him, and I say 
"Who art thou?" And he says, "I am the Christ of 
Mary Magdalen!" And then I thought that perhaps 
there might have been a dying prayer, and that there 
might have been penitential tears, and around that mis- 
erable spot at the last there may be more resurrection 
pomp than when Queen Elizabeth gets out of her mauso- 
leum in Westminster Abbey. 
But I must close the two lantern*. 
7 



98 

i 



SATANIC AGITATIOK. 



CHAPTER VI. 

SATANIC AGITATION. 

M The devil la come down unto you, having great wrath, because 
he knoweth he hath but a short time." — Revelation xii: 12. 

Somehow the enemy of all good has found out what 
will be the hour of his dismissal from this world. He 
cried out to Christ: "Hast thou come to torment us 
before the time?" It is a healthful symptom that Satan 
is so active now in all our cities. It is the indication 
that he is going out of business. From the way that he 
flies around, he is practically saying: u Give me 500,000 
souls; give me New York and Brooklyn; give me Boston 
and Philadelphia and Cincinnati; give me all the cities, 
and give them to me quickly, or I will never get them 
at all." That Satan is in paroxysm of excitement is cer- 
tain. His establishments are nearly bankrupted. That 
the powers of darkness are nervous, knowing their time 
is short, is evident from the fact that, if a man stand in a 
pulpit speaking against the great iniquities of the day, 
they all begin to flutter. 

A few nights ago, riding up Broadway, I asked the 
driver to stop at a street-lamp that I might better 
examine my memorandum (it happened to be in front of 
a place of amusement), when a man rushed out with 
great alarm and excitement, and said to the driver, "Is 
that Talmage you have inside there?" Men write me 
with commercial handwriting, protesting, evidently be- 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



99 



cause they fear that sometimes in their midnight carousal 
they may meet a Christian reformer and explorer. 1 had 
thought to preach three or four sermons on the night 
side of city life ; but now that I find that all the powers 
of darkness are so agitated and alarmed and terrorized, I 
plant the battery for new assault upon the castles of sin, 
and shall go on from Sabbath morning to Sabbath morn- 
ing, saying all I have to say, winding up this subject by 
several sermons on the glorious daybreak of Christian 
reform and charity which have made this cluster of cities 
the best place on earth to live in. Meanwhile, under- 
stand that whatever Satanic excitement may be abroad 
is only in fulfillment of the words of my text: "The 
devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, be- 
cause he knoweththat he hath but a short time." 

A few nights ago, passing over from Brooklyn by 
South Ferry, our great metropolis looked like a mountain 
of pieturesqueness and beauty. There were enough stars 
scattered over the heavens to suggest the street-lamps 
of that city which hath no need of the sun. The masts 
of the shipping against the sky brought to us the cos- 
mopolitan feeling, and I said, "All the world is here." 
The spires of St. Paul's, and St. George's, and of Trinity 
pointed up through the starlight toward the only rescue 
for the dying populations of our great cities. Long rows 
of lamps skirted the city with fire. More than ten thous- 
and gaslights, united with those kindled in towers and 
in the top stories of establishments which ply great in- 
dustries in perpetual motion, threw on the sky froix, 
horizon to horizon the radiance of a vast illumination. 
Landing on New York side, the first thing that confront- 
ed us was the greatest nuisance and the grandest relief 
which New York has experienced in the last thirty years, 
*%e elevated railway, which, while it has commercial 
LofC. 



100 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



significance, has more moral meaning. Buin and death 
to the streets through which it runs, it is the means of 
moral salvation to the crowded and smothered tenement- 
houses, which have heen slaying their thousands year by 
year. Was there ever such a disfigurement and sacrifi- 
cation of carpentry and engineering that wrought such 
a blissful result? The great obstacle to New York morals 
is the shape of the island. More than nine miles long, 
in some places it is only a mile and a half wide. While 
this immense water frontage of twenty miles is grand 
for commerce, it gives crowded residence to the popula- 
tion, unless, by some rapid mode of transit, they can be 
whirled to distant homes at night, and whirled back 
again in the morning. These people must be near their 
work. Some of them do not like ferriage. Many of 
them are afraid of water. From the looks of some of 
their hands and faces, you find it proved that they are 
afraid of water. Hence they are huddled together in 
tenement-houses, which are the destruction of all health, 
all modesty, and the highest style of morals. For the 
last thirty years New York has been crowded to death. 
Hence, when on the night of our exploration we saw the 
rail-train flying through the air, I said to myself, 4 'This 
is the first practical alleviation of the tenement-house 
system." People of small means will have an oppor- 
tunity of getting to the better air and the better morals 
and the better accomodations of the country. But let 
not this style of improvement be made at the expense of 
those whose property is destroyed by the clatter and bang 
and wheeze of mid-air locomotive. Let cities, like indi- 
viduals, pay for damages wrought, and for horses fright- 
ened out of their harness, and for carriages smashed 
against the curbstone. New York and Brooklyn and all 
our great cities needjwhat London has already gained — 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



101 



underground railroads which shall, without hindrance 
and without danger and without nuisance, put down our 
great populations just where they want to be, morning 
and night. 

Passing up through the city, on the left was Castle 
Garden, now comparatively unattractive; but as we went 
past, my boyhood memory brought back to me the time 
when all that region was crowded with the finest equi- 
pages of New York and Brooklyn, and Castle Garden 
was thronged with a great multitude, many of whom 
had paid $14 for a seat to hear Jenny Lind sing. While 
God might make a hundred such artists in a year, He 
makes only one for a century. He who heard her sing 
would have no right to complain if he never heard any 
more music until he heard the dcxology of the one hun- 
dred and forty and four thousand. There was the music 
of two worlds in her voice. While surrounded by those 
who almost deified her, she wrote in a private album a 
verse which it may not be wrong to quote : 

In vain I seek for rest 

In all created good; 
It leaves me still unblest 

And makes me cry for God. 
And sure at rest I cannot be 
Until my heart finds rest in Thee. 

That was the secret of her music, and never, either 
day or night, do I pass Castle Garden, but I think of 
the Swedish cantatrice and the excited and vociferating 
assemblage, the majority of whom have joined the larger 
assemblages of the next world. 

Passing on up into New York, we left on the right 
hand, the once fashionable Bowling Green, around which 
the wealth of New York congregated — the once elegant 
drawing-rooms, now occupied by steamship companies, 



102 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



where passengers get booked for Glasgow and Liverpool ; 
the inhabitants of those once elegant drawing-rooms long 
ago booked for a longer voyage. Passing on up, we 
heard only the clatter of the horses' hoofs until we came 
to the head of Wall street, and by the two rows of gas- 
lights, saw that on all that street there was not a foot 
stirring. And yet there seemed to come up on the night 
air the cachinnation of those on whose hands the stocks 
had gone up, and the sighing of jobbers on whose hands 
the stocks had gone down. The street, only half a mile 
long, and yet the avenue of fabulous accumulation, and 
appalling bankruptcy, and wild swindle, and suicide, and 
catastrophe, and death ! While the sough of the w 7 ind 
came up from Wall street toward old Trinity, it seemed 
to say: "Where is Ketcham? Where is Swartwout? 
Where is Gay ? Where is Fisk ? Where is Cornelius 
Vanderbilt? Where is the Black Friday ?" Then the 
tower of Trinity tolled nine times — -three for the bank- 
rupted, three for the suicided, three for the dead ! 
"Hurry up, George," I said, "and get past this place;" 
for though I do not believe in ghosts, I wanted to get 
past that forsaken and all-suggestive night-scene of Wall 
street. Under the flickering gaslight one of active iim 
agination might almost imagine he saw trie ghosts of 
ten thousand fortunes dead and damned. Hastening on 
up a few blocks, we came where, on the right side, we 
saw large establishments ablaze from foundation to cap- 
stone. These were the great printing-houses of the New 
York dailies. W T e got out. We went in. We went up 
from editorial rooms to type-setters' and proof-readers' 
loft. These are the foundries where the great thunder- 
bolts of public opinion are forged. How the pens 
scratched ! How the types clicked ! How the scissors 
cut ! How the wheels rushed, all the world's news roll* 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



103 



ing over the cylinder like Niagara at Table Bock. Great 
torrents of opinion, of crimes, of accidents, of destroyed 
reputations, of avenged character. Who can estimate 
the mightiness for good or evil of a daily newspaper? 
Fingers of steel picking off the end of telegraphic wire, 
facts of religion and philosophy and science, and infor- 
mation from the four winds of heaven ! In 1850 the 
Associated Press began to pay $200,000 a year for news. 
Some of the individual sheets paying $50,000 extra for 
dispatches. Some of them, independent of the Asso- 
ciated Press, with a wire rake gathering up sheaves of 
news from all the great harvest fields of the world. It 
is high time that good men understood that the print- 
ing press is the mightiest engine of all the centuries. 
The high-water mark of the printer's type-case shows the 
ebb or flow of the great oceanic tides of civilization or 
Christianity. Just think of it ! In 1835 all the daily 
newspapers of New York issued but 10,000 copies. Now 
there are 500,000, and taking the ordinary calculation 
that five people read a newspaper, two million, five hun- 
dred thousand people reading the daily newspapers of 
New York ! I once could not understand how the Bible 
statement could be true when it says that "nations shall 
be born in a day." I can understand it now. Get the 
telegraph operators and the editors converted, and in 
twenty-four hours the whole earth will hear the salvation 
call. Nothing more impressed me in the night explora- 
tion than the power of the press. But it is carried on with 
oh ! what aching eyes, and what exhaustion of health. 
I did not find more than one man out of ten who had 
anything like brawny health in the great newspaper 
establishments of New York. The malodor of the ink, 
however complete the ventilation ; the necessity of toiling 
at hours when God has drawn the curtain of the night 



104 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



for natural sleep ; the pressure of daily publication what- 
ever breaks down; the temptation to intoxicating stim- 
ulants in order to keep the nervous energy up, a tempta- 
tion which only the strongest can resist — all these make 
newspaper life something to be sympathized with. Do 
not begrudge the three or five cents you give for the 
newspaper. You buy not only intelligence with that, 
but you help pay for sleepless nights, and smarting eye- 
balls, and racked brain, and early sepulchre. 

Coming out of these establishments, my mind full of 
the bewildering activities of the place, I stopped on the 
street and I said, "Now drive up Broadway, and turn 
down Chambers street to the left, and let us see what 
New York will be twenty years from now. " The proba- 
bility is that those who are criminal will stay criminal ; 
the vast majority of those who are libertines will remain 
libertines ; the vast majority of those who are thieves 
will stay thieves ; the vast majority of those who are 
drunkards will stay drunkards. "What," say you, "no 
hope for the cities ? " Ah ! my heart was never so full 
of high and exhilarant hope as now. We turned down 
Chambers street until we came to the sign "Newsboys' 
Lodging-house," and we went in. Now, if there is 
anything I like it is boys. Not those brought up by 
registers, with the house heated by furnaces, and lads 
manipulated by some over-indulgent aunt, until their 
hair has bean curled until they have got to be girls ; but 
I mean genuine boys, such as God makes, with extra 
romp and hilarity, so that after they have been pounded 
by the world they shall have some exuberance left. Boys, 
genuine boys, who cannot keep quiet five minutes. Boys 
who can skate, and swim, and rove, and fly kites, and 
strike balls, and defend sickly playmates when they are 
imposed on, and get hungry in half an hour after they 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



105 



have dined, and who keep things stirred up and lively. 
Matthew Arnold's boys. 

We entered the Newsboys' Lodging-house, and there 
we found them. I knew them right away, and they 
knew me, by a sort of instinct of friendliness. Their 
coats off ; for, although outside it was biting cold, inside 
the room Christian charity had flooded everything with 
glorious summer. Over the doorway were written the 
words: "No boys that have homes can stop here.'* 
"What," I said, "can it be possible that all these bright 
and happy lads have been swept up from the street?" 
First, they are plunged into the bath, and then they pass 
under the manipulations of the barber, and then they are 
taken to the wardrobe, and in the name of Him who 
said, "I was naked and ye clothed me," they are arrayed 
in appropriate attire, each one paying, if he can, so there 
shall be no sense of pauperism ; some of them paying 
one penny for all the privileges of a bountiful table, and 
the most extravagant paying only six cents. Gymna- 
sium to straighten and invigorate the pinched bodies. 
Books for the mind. Eeligion for the soul. I said, 
"Can these boys sing?" and the answer came back in an 
anthem that shook the room : 

Ring the bells of heaven, 
For there's joy to-day. 

I said, "What is this long, broad box with so many 
numbers nailed by a great many openings?" "Oh," 
they said, "this is the savings bank ; the boys put their 
money here, and each one has a bank-book, and he gets 
his money at the beginning of the month. " Meanwhile, 
if under urgency for a new top, or attractive confection- 
ery, or any one of those undefmable things which crowd 
a boy's pockets, he wants money, he cannot get it. He 
must wait until the first of the month, and so thrift and 



106 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



economy are cultivated. I know statistics are generally 
very dry, but here is a statistic which has in it as much 
spirit as anything that Thackeray ever wrote, and as 
much sublimity as anything John Milton ever wrote : 
One hundred and forty-three thousand boys have been 
assembled in these newsboys' lodging-houses since the 
establishment of the institution ; twelve thousand have 
been returned to friends, and fifteen thousand have 
deposited in this great box over $42,000 ; while many 
of the lads have been prepared for usefulness, becoming 
farmers, mechanics, merchants, bankers, clergymen, law- 
yers, doctors, judges of courts even, and many of them 
prepared for heaven, where some have already entered, 
confronting, personally, that Christ in whose compassion 
the institution was established. And this society all the 
time transporting the lads to Western farms. No 
reformation for them while they stay in the dens of New 
York. What must be the sensation of a lad who has 
lived all his days in Elm street, or Water street, when 
he wakes up on the Iowa prairie, with one hundred miles 
room on all sides ? One of these lads, getting out West, 
wrote a letter, descriptive of the place, and urging others 
to come. He said: 

"I am getting along first rate. I am on probation in the Meth - 
odist Church. I will be entered as a member the first of next 
month. I now teach a Sunday-school class of eleven boys. I get 
along first rate with it. This is a splendid country to make a 
living in. If the boys running around the street with a blacking- 
box on their shoulder or a bundle of papers under their arms only 
knew what high old times we boys have out here, they wouldn't 
hesitate about coming West, but come the first chance they got." 

And to show the brightness of some of these lads, one 
of them made a little speech to his comrades just as he 
was about to start West, saying to his friends whom he 
was about to leave : 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



107 



"Boys and gentlemen, perhaps you would like to hear sum'at 
about the West, the great West, you know, where so many of our 
old friends are settled down and going to be great men; some of 
the greatest men in the great Republic, Boys, that's the place for 
growing Congressmen, and Governors, and Presidents. Do you 
want to be newsboys always, and shoeblacks, and timber mer- 
chants in a small way, by selling matches? If you do, you will 
stay in New York; but if you don't, you will go out West and begin 
to be farmers; for the beginning of a farmer, my boys, is the mak- 
ing of a Congressman and a President. If you want to be loafers 
all your days, you will hang up your caps, and play around the 
groceries, and join fire engine and truck companies; but if you 
want to be the man who will make his mark in the country, you 
will get up steam and go ahead. There is lots of the prairies wait- 
ing for you. You havn't any idea of what you may be yet, if you 
will take a bit of my advice. How do you know but if you are 
honest and good and industrious, you may get so much up in the 
ranks that you will not have a general or a judge your boss? You 
will be lifted on horseback when you go to take a ride on the prai- 
ries, and if you choose to go in a wagon, or on an excursion, you 
will find that the hard times don't touch you there, and the best 
of aJl will be that if it is good to-day it will be better to-morrow." 

Is not a lad like that worth saving ? There are thou- 
sands of them in New York. God have mercy on 
them ! 

As I came down off the steps of that benevolent insti- 
tution, I said, "Surely, the evils of our cities are not more 
wonderful than their charities." Then I started out 
through New Bowery, and I came to the sign of the 
Howard Mission, famous on earth and- in heaven for the 
fact that through it so many Christian merchants and 
bankers, and philanthropists have saved multitudes of 
boys and girls from eternal calamity. Last summer 
that institution, taking some children one or two hun- 
dred miles into the country to be taken care of gratui- 
tously for two or three weeks on farms, the train stopped 
at the depot, and one lad, who had never seen a green 
field, rushed out and gathered up the grass and the 



108 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



flowers, and carne back and then took onfc a penny, his 
entire fortune, and handed it to the overseer, and said, 
"Here, take that penny and bring out more boys to see 
the flowers and the country." Seated on the platform 
of the Howard Mission that night, looking off upon these 
rescued children, I said within myself, "Who can esti- 
mate the reward for both worlds to these people who put 
their energies in such a Christ-like undertaking?" What 
a monument for Joseph Hoxie and Mr. Van Meter, the 
counselors of the institution in the past, and for A. S. 
Hatch and H. E. Tompkins, its advisers at the present, 
and thousands of people who in giving food through 
that institution have fed Christ, and in donating gar- 
ments have clothed Christ, and in sheltering the wan- 
dering have housed Christ ! God will pursue such men 
and women with His mercy to the edge of the pillow on 
which they die, and then, on the other side of the gate, 
He will give them a reception that will make all heaven 
echo and re-echo with their deeds. But oh ! how much 
work — herculean, yea, omnipotent work — before all this 
vagrancy is ended ! It is an authentic statistic that in 
this cluster of cities there are eighty thousand people 
over ten years of age who cannot write their names. 
Then what must be the ignorance of the multitudes 
under that age ? 

But I said to the driver, "We must hasten out on 
Broadway, for it is just the time when all the righteous 
and unrighteous places of amusement will be disband- 
ing, and we shall see the people going up and down the 
streets. Coming from all sides, these are the great tides 
of life and death. The last orchestra had played. The 
curtain had dropped at the end of the play. The 
audiences of the concerts in the churches and the acade- 
mies had all dispersed, moving up and down the street. 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



109 



Good amusements are very good. Bad amusements are 
very bad. He who paints a fine picture, or who sculp- 
tures a beautiful statue, or sings a healthful song, or 
rouses an innocent laugh, or in any way cuts the strap of 
the burden of care on the world's shoulders, is a bene- 
factor, and in the name of God I bless him ; but between 
Canal street and Fourteenth street there are enough 
places of iniquitous amusement to keep all the world of 
darkness in perpetual holiday. In fifteen minutes, on 
any street almost of our city,you may find enough vicious 
amusement to invoke all the sulphur and brimstone 
that overwhelmed Sodom. The more than three hun- 
dred miles of Croton water pipes underlying New York 
city, emptied on these polluted places, could not wash 
them clean! You see the people coming out flushed 
with the strychnine wine taken in the recesses of the 
programme — some of the people in companionship that 
insures their present and eternal discomfiture, turning 
off from Broadway on the narrow streets running off 
either side ! The recording angel shivered with horror 
as he penned their destiny. 

Looking out of the carriage, I saw a tragedy on the 
corner of Broadway and Houston streets. A young man, 
evidently doubting as to which direction he had better 
take, his hat lifted high enough so you could see he had 
an intelligent forehead, stout chest ; he had a robust 
development. Splendid young man. Cultured young man. 
Honored young man. Why did he stop there while 
so many were going up and down ? The fact is, that 
every man has a good angel and a bad angel contending 
for the mastery of his spirit, and there was a good angel 
and a bad angel struggling with that young man's soul 
at the corner of Broadwav and Houston streets. "Come 
with me,'* said the good angel; "I will take you home; 



110 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



I will spread my wing over your pillow ; I will lovingly 
escort you all through life under supernatural protection ; 
I will bless every cup you drink out of, every couch you 
rest on, every doorway you enter ; I will consecrate your 
tears when you weep, your sweat when you toil, and at 
the last I will hand over your grave into the hand of the 
bright angel of a Christian resurrection. In answer to 
your father's petition and your mother's prayer, I have 
been sent of the Lord out of heaven to be your guardian 
spirit. Come with me," said the good angel in a voice 
of unearthly symphony. It was music like that which 
drops from a lute of heaven when a seraph breathes on 
it. "No, no," said the bad angel, "come with me; I 
have something better to offer ; the wines I pour are from 
chalices of bewitching carousal ; the dance I lead is over 
floor tessellated with unrestrained indulgences ; there is 
no God to frown on the temples of sin where I worship. 
The skies are Italian. The paths I tread are through 
meadows, daisied and primrosed. Come with me." The 
young man hesitated at a time when hesitation was ruin, 
and the bad angel smote the good angel until it departed, 
spreading wings through the starlight upward and away 
until a door flashed open in the sky and forever the wings 
vanished. That was the turning point in that young 
man's history ; for, the good angel flown, he hesitated no 
longer, but started on a pathway which is beautiful at 
the opening, but blasted at the last. The bad angel, 
leading the way, opened gate after gate, and at each gate 
the road became rougher and the sky more lurid, and 
what was peculiar, as the gate slammed shut it came to 
with a jar that indicated that it would never open. Passed 
each portal, there was a grinding of locks and a shoving 
of bolts ; and the scenery on either side the road changed 
from gardens to deserts, and the June air became a cut- 
ting December blast, and the bright wings of the bad 



SATANIC AGITATION. 



Ill 



angel turned to sackcloth, and the eyes of light became 
hollow with hopeless grief, and the fountains, that at the 
start had tossed with wine, poured forth bubbling tears 
and foaming blood, and on the right side the road there 
was a serpent, and the man saidto the bad angel, "What 
is that serpent?" and the answer was, "That is the ser- 
pent of stinging remorse." On the left side the road 
there was a lion, and the man asked the bad angel, 
"What is that lion?" and the answer was, "That is the 
lion of all-devouring despair." A vulture flew through 
the sky, and the man asked the bad angel, "What is that 
vulture?" and the answer was, "That is the vulture 
waiting for the carcasses of the slain." And then the 
man began to try to pull off of him the folds of some- 
thing that had wound him round and round, and he said 
to the bad angel, "What is it that twists me in this awful 
convolution?" and the answer was, "That is the worm 
that never dies ! " And then the man said to the bad 
angel, "What does all this mean? I trusted in what you 
said at the corner of Broadway and Houston streets ; I 
trusted it all, and why have you thus deceived me?" 
Then the last deception fell off the charmer, and it said, 
"I was sent forth from the pit to destroy your soul ; I 
watched my chance for many a long year ; when you 
hesitated that night on Broadway I gained my triumph ; 
now you are here. Ha ! ha ! You are here. Come, now, 
let us fill these two chalices of fire, and drink together 
to darkness and woe and death. Hail ! Hail ! " Oh ! 
young man, will the good angel sent forth by Christ, or 
the bad angel sent forth by sin, get the victory over 
your soul ? Their wings are interlocked this moment 
above you, contending for your destiny, as above the 
Apennines, eagle and condor fight mid-sky. This 
hour may decide your destiny. God help you. To 
hesitate is to die ' 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



CHAPTER YIL 

AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 

A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell 
among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment and wounded him, 
and departed, leaving him half dead. — St. Luke x* 80. 

This attack of highwaymen was in a rocky ravine, 
which gives to robbers a first-rate chance. So late as 
1820, on that very road, an English traveler was shot 
and robbed. This wayfarer of the text not only lost his 
money and his apparel, but nearly lost his life. His 
assailants were not only thieves, but assassins. The 
scene of this lonely road from Jerusalem to Jericho is 
repeated every night in our great cities — men falling 
among thieves, getting wounded, and left half dead. In 
this series of Sabbath morning discourses on the 
night side of city life, as I have recently explored it§ 
I have spoken to you of the night of pauperism, the 
night of debauchery and shame, the night of official 
neglect and bribery, and now I come to speak te 
you of the night of theft, the night of burglary, the 
night of assassination, the night of pistol and dirk 
and bludgeon. You say, what can there be in such a 
subject for me? Then you remind me of the man who 
asked Christ the question, "Who is my neighbor?" and 
in the reply of the text, Christ is setting forth the idea 
that wherever there is a man in trouble, there is your 
neighbor; and before I get through this morning, if the 
Lord will help me, I will show you that you have some 
very dangerous neighbors, and I will show you also what 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



113 



is your moral responsibility before God in regard to 
them. 

I said to the chief official, "Give me two stont detec- 
tives for this night's work — men who are not only mus- 
cular, but who look muscular." I said to these detec- 
tives before we started on our midnight exploration, 
"Have you loaded pistols?" and they brought forth 
their firearms and their clubs, showing that they were 
ready for anything. Then I said, "Show me crime; 
ghow me crime in the worst shape, the most villainous 
and outrageous crime. In other words show me the 
worst classes of people to be saved by the power of 
Christ's gospel." I took with me only two officers of 
the law, for I want no one to run any risk in my behalf, 
and, having undertaken to show up the lowest depths of 
Bociety, I felt I must go on until I had completed the 
work. One of the officers proposed to me that I take a 
disguise lest I be assailed. I said, "No; I am going on 
a mission of Christian work, and I am going to take the 
risks, and I shall go as I am." And so I went. You say to 
me, 4 'Why didn't you first look after the criminal classes 
in Brooklyn?" I answer, it was not for any lack of mate- 
rial. Last year, in the city of Brooklyn, there were 
nearly 27,000 arrests for crime. Two hundred burglaries. 
Thirteen homicides. Twenty-seven highway robberies. 
Forty thousand lodgers in the station houses. Three 
hundred and thirty-six scoundrels who had their pictures 
taken for the Rogues Gallery, without any expense to 
those who sat for the pictures! Two hundred thousand 
dollars' worth of property stolen. Every kind of crime, 
from manslaughter to chicken thief. Indeed, I do not 
think there is any place in the land where you can more 
easily get your pocket picked, or your house burglarized, 
or your iignature counterfeited, or your estate swindled, 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



than in Brooklyn; but crime here is on a comparatively 
small scale, because we are a smaller city. The great 
depots of crime for this cluster of cities are in New York. 
It is a better hiding-place, the city is so vast, and all 
officers tell us that when a crime is committed in Jersey 
3ity, or is committed in Brooklyn, the villain attempt* 
immediately to cross the ferry. While Brooklyn's sin 
is as enterprising as is possible for the number of in- 
habitants, crowd one million people on an island, and 
you have a stage and an audience on which and before 
whom crime may enact its worst tragedies. 

There was nothing that more impressed me on that 
terrible night of exploration than the respect which 
crime pays to law when it is really confronted. Why 
do those eight or ten desperadoes immediately stop their 
blasphemy and their uproar and their wrangling ? It is 
because an officer of the law calmly throws back the lap- 
pel of his coat and shows the badge of authority. The 
fact is that government is ordained of heaven, and just 
so far as the police officer does his duty, just so far is he 
a deputy of the Lord Almighty. That is the reason 
Inspector Murray, of New York, sometimes goes in and 
arrests four or five desperadoes. He is a man of com- 
paratively slight stature, yet when one is backed up by 
omnipotent justice he can do anything. I said, "What 
is this glazed window, and who are these mysterious 
people going in and then coming out and passing down 
the street, looking to the pavement, and keeping a regu- 
lar step until they hear a quick step behind them, and 
then darting down an alley?" This place, in the night 
of our exploration, was what the Bible calls "a den of 
thieves." They will not admit it. You cannot prove 
it against them, for the reason that the keeper and the 
patrons are the acutest m@a in the city. No sign of 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



115 



stolen goods, no loud talk about misdemeanors, but here 
a table surrounded by three or four persons whispering; 
yonder a table surrounded by three or four more per- 
sons whispering; before each man a mug of beer or 
stronger intoxicant. lie will not drink to unconscious- 
ness; he will only drink to get his courage up to the 
point of recklessness, all the while managing^ to keep his 
eye clear and his hand steady. These men around this 
table are talking over last night's exploit; their narrow 
escape from the basement door; how nearly they fell 
from the window-ledge of the second story; how the bul- 
let grazed the hair. What is this bandaged hand you 
see in that room? That was cut by the window-glass as 
the burglar thrust his hand through to the inside fasten- 
ing. How did that man lose his eye? It was destroyed 
three years ago by a premature flash of gunpowder in a 
store lock. Who are these three or four surrounding 
this other table? They are planning for to-night's vil- 
lainy. They know just what hour the last member of 
the family will retire. They are in collusion with the 
servant, who has promised to leave one of the back win- 
dows open. They know at what time the man of wealth 
will leave his place of dissipation and start fur home, 
and they are arranging it how they shall come out of 
the dark alley and bring him down with a slungshot. 
No sign of desperation in this room of thieves, and yet 
how many false keys, how many ugly pocket-knives, 
how many brass knuckles, how many revolvers! A few 
vulgar pictures on the wall, and the inevitable bar. Rum 
they must have to rest them after the exciting maraud- 
ing. Rum they must have before they start on the new 
expedition of arson and larceny and murder. But not 
ordinary rum. It is poisoned four times. Poisoned 
first by the manufacturer; poisoned Secondly by the 



3556 AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 

wholesale dealer; poisoned thirdly by the retail dealer*, 
poisoned fourthly by the saloon-keeper. Poisoned fow 
times, it is jnst right to fit one for cruelty and despera 
&>d. Th^se men have calculated to the last quarter oi 
a glass how much they need to take to qualify them for 
their work. They must not take a drop too much nor a 
drop too little. These are the professional criminals of 
the city, between twenty-three and twenty-four hundred 
of them, in this cluster of cities. They are as thoroughly 
drilled in crime as, for good purposes, medical colleges 
train doctors, law colleges train lawyers, theological 
seminaries train clergymen. These criminals have been 
apprentices and journeymen; but now they are boss 
workmen. They have gone through the freshman, 
^p&omore, junior and senior classes of the great uni- 
wajtoy of crime, and have graduated with diplomas 
%agned by all the faculty of darkness. They have no 
ambition for an easy theft, or an unskilled murder, or a 
hindering blackmail. They must have something dif- 
ficult. They must have in their enterprise the excite- 
ment of peril. They must have something that will give 
them an opportunity of bravado. They must do some- 
thing which amateurs in crime dare not do. These are 
the bank robbers, about sixty of them in this cluster of 
cities — men who somehow get in the bank during the 
'5*ytime, then at night spring out upon the watchman, 
ftsten him, and for the whole night have deliberate 
lamination of the cashier's books to see whether he 
Iseeps his accounts correctly. These are the men who 
come in to examine the directory in the back part of 
your store while their accomplices are in the front paart 
of the store engaging jom. in conversation, then drop- 
ping the directory and investigating the money salfe. 
These are the forgers who get -one of your canceled 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



117 



checks and one of your blank checks, and practice on the 
writing of your name until the deception is as perfect as 
the counterfeit check of Cornelius Yanderbilt, indorsed 
bj Henry Keep, in 1870, for $75,000, which check was im- 
mediately cashed at the City Bank. These are the pick- 
pockets, six hundred of them in this cluster of cities, 
who sit beside you in the stage and help you pass up the 
change! They stand beside you when you are shopping, 
and help you examine the goods, and weep beside you at 
the funeral, and sometimes bow their heads beside you 
in the house of God, doing their work with such adroit- 
ness that your affliction at the loss of the money is some- 
what mitigated by your appreciation of the skill of the 
operator! The most successful of these are females, 
and, I suppose, on the theory that if a woman is good 
she is better than man, and if she is bad she is worse. 
She stands so much higher up than man that when she 
falls she falls further. Some of these criminals, pick- 
pockets, and thieves also take the garb of clergymen. 
They look like doctors of divinity. With coats buttoned 
clear up to the chin, and white cravated, they look as if 
they were just going to pronounce the benediction, 
while they are all the time wondering where your watch 
is, or your portmonnaie is. 

A thousand of the professional criminals do nothing 
but snatch things. They go in pairs, one of them keep- 
ing your attention in one part of the store, the other 
doing a lively business in another part of the store. At 
one end of the establishment the proprietor is smiling 
graciously on one who seems to be an exquisite lady, 
while in another part of the same establishment a roll of 
goods is taken up by a copartner in crime and put in a 
crocodile pocket, large enough to swallow everything. 
These professional criminals are the men who break in 



118 



AMONG THIEVES AND AS8ASSINS. 



the windows of jewelry stores and snatch the jewels, and 
before the clerks have an opportunity of knowing what 
is the excitement are a block away, looking innocent, 
* ready to come back and join in the pursuit of the offend- " • 
er, shouting with stentorian voice, "Stop, thief !" You 
wonder whether these people get large accumulation. 
No. Of the largest haul they get only a fifth, or a sixth, 
or a seventh part, It is the receiver of stolen goods that 
gets the profit. If these men during the course of their 
lives should get §50,000 they will live poor, and die 
poor, and be poor to all eternity. Among these profes- 
sional criminals in our cities are the blackmailers — those 
who would have you pay a certain amount of money or 
have your character tarnished. If you are guilty I have 
no counsel to give in this matter; but if you are innocent 
let me say that no one of integrity need ever fear the 
blackmailer. All you have to do is to put the case im- 
mediately in the hands of Superintendent ^Vailing of the 
New York police, or Superintendent Campbell of the 
Brooklyn police, and you will be vindicated. Depend 
upon it, however, that every dollar you pay to a black- 
mailer is toward your own everlasting enthrallment. A 
man in a cavern fighting a tigress might as well consent 
to give the tigress his right hand, letting her eat it up, 
with the supposition that she would let him off with the 
rest of his body, as for you to pay anything to a black- 
mailer with the idea of getting your character cleared. 
The thing to be done is to have the tigress shot, and that, 
the law is willing to do. Let me lay down a principle 
you can put in your memorandum books, and put in the 
front part of your Bible, and in the back part of your 
Bible, and put in your day-book, and put in your ledger — 
this principle: that no man's character is ever sacrificed 
until he sacrifices it himself. But you surrender your 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



119 



reputation, your fortune, your home, and your immortal 
soul, when you pay a farthing to a blackmailer. 

Who are these men in this room at Hook Dock, or at 
the foot of Roosevelt street? They are professional crimi- 
nals. Under the cover of the night they go down through 
the bay, or up and down the rivers. Finding two men 
in a row boat going to some steamer, or to one of the ad- 
joining islands, they board the boat, rob the two men of 
their money, and, if they seem unreasonably opposed to 
giving up their money, taking their lives and giving 
them watery graves. These are the men who lounge 
around the solitary pier at night, and who clamber up on 
the side of the vessel lying at wharf, and, finding the 
captain asleep give him chloroform to help him sleep, 
and then knock the watchman overboard and take the 
valuables. Of this class were Howiett and Saul, who by 
twenty-one years of age had become the terror of the 
twenty-one miles of New York city water front, and who 
wound up their piracy by a murder on the bark " Thomas 
Watson," and crossed the gallows, relieving the world of 
their existence. 

But in all these dens of thieves we find those who ex- 
cite only our pity — people flung off the steeps of decent 
society. Having done wrong once, in despair they went 
to the bottom. Of such was that man who last Wednes- 
day, in New York, stole a roll of goods, went to the sta- 
tion-house, said he was hungry, and asked to be sent to 
prison. Of such are those young men who make false 
entries in the account-book, resolved to "fix it up;" or 
who surreptitiously borrow from the commercial estab- 
lishment, expecting to "fix it up;" but sickness comes, 
or accident comes, or a conjunction of unexpected circum 
stances, and they never "fix it up." 

In disgrace they go down. Oh! how many, by force of 



120 AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 

circumstances, and at the start with no very bad idea, get 
off the track and perish. A gentleman sitting in this 
assemblage this morning told me of an incident which 
occurred in a large commercial establishment,! believe the 
fourth in size in the whole country. The employer said 
to a young lady in the establishment, "You must dress 
better." She said, "I cannot dress better; I get $6 a 
week, and I pay $4 for my board, and I have $2 for dress 
and for my car fare; I cannot dress better." Then he 
said, "You must get it in some other way." Well, I 
suppose she could steal. I do not know how that inci- 
dent affects you; but when it was told to me it made 
every drop of my blood, from scalp to heel, tingle with 
indignation. The fact is that there are thousands of men 
and women dropping into dishonesty and crime by force 
of circumstances, and by their destitution. Under the 
same kind of pressure you and I would have perished. 
It is despicable to stand on shore laughing at the ship- 
wrecked struggling in the breakers when we ought to be 
getting out the rockets and the lifeboat and the ropes 
from the wrecking establishment. How much have you 
ever done to get this class ashore? In our city of Brook- 
lyn we grip them of the police. Then we hustle them 
into a court room amid a great crowd of gaping specta- 
tors. Then we throw them into the worst jail on the 
continent — Raymond Street Jail. We put them in there 
with three or four confirmed criminals, and then actu- 
ally deny $500 to the chaplain, who is giving his time 
for the alleviation of their condition, and putting our 
refusal of the $500 on the ground that if we support 
that thing in the penitentiary, and if we have religious 
services there it will be so much like uniting church and 
Statel 

"But," says some one at this point in my discourse, 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



121 



u where does all this crime come from?" Let me tell 
you that New York is now paying for the political dis- 
honesties of ten years ago. Do you believe that the 
political iniquities of 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1871 could 
be enacted in any city without demoralizing the com- 
mdnity from top to bottom? Look at the sham elec- 
tions of 1868 and 1869. Think of those times when a 
criminal was auditor of public accounts, and honorable 
gentlemen in the legal profession were put out of sight 
by shyster lawyers, and some of the police magistrates 
were worse than the criminals arraigned before them, 
and when the most notorious thief since the creation of 
the world, was a State Senator, holding princely levee at 
the Delevan House at Albany. Ah I my friends, those 
were the times when thousands of men were put on the 
wrong track. They said: "Why, what's the use of 
honest work when knavery declares such large divi- 
dends? What's the use of my going afoot in shoes I 
have to pay for myself, when I can have gilded livery 
sweeping through Broadway supported by public funds?" 
The rule was, as far as I remember it: Get an office 
with a large salary; if you cannot get an office with a 
large salary, get an office with a small salary, and then 
steal all you can lay your hands on, and call them "per- 
quisites;" and then give subordinate offices to your 
friends, and let them help you on with the universal 
swindle, and get more "perquisites." Many of the young 
men of the cities were then eighteen years of age. They 
saw their parents hard at work with trowel and yard- 
stick and pen, getting only a cramped living, while those 
men who were throwing themselves on their political 
wits had plenty of money and no work. Do you wonder 
that thousands adopted a life of dissipated indolence? 
Ten years having passed, they are now twenty-eight 



122 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



years of age, and in full swing of vagabondism. The 
putrid politics of ten years ago sowed much of the crop 
which is now being harvested by the almshouse and the 
penitentiary. But you say, "What is the practical use 
of this subject this morning? Have I any relation to 
it?" You have. In the last judgment you will have to 
give answer for your relation to it. Through all eternity 
you will feel the consequences of your relation to it. I 
could not waste my time, nor your time, in a discussion 
if there were not some practical significance to it. First 
of all, I give you a statistic which ought to make every 
office- table, and every counting-room desk, and every 
money-safe quake and tremble. It is the statistic that 
larcenies in New York city, 3 i recti y and indirectly, cost 
that city $6,000,000 per year. There are all the moneys 
taken, in the first place. Then there are the prisons and 
the station-houses. Then there are the courts. Then 
there is the vast machinery of municipal government for 
the arraignment and treatment of villainy. Why, the 
Court of Sessions and the police courts cost the city of 
New York about $200,000 per year. The police force 
directly and indirectly costs the city of New York over 
$2,000,000 a year, and all that expenditure puts its tax 
on every bill of lading, on every yard of goods, on every 
parlor, every nursery, every store, every shop, every brick 
from foundation to capstone, every foot of ground from 
the south side of Castle Garden to the north side of Cen- 
tral Park, and upon all Brooklyn, and upon all Jersey 
City, for the reason that the interests of these cities are 
so interlocked that what is the prosperity of one is the 
prosperity of all, and what is the calamity of one is the 
calamity of all. But I do not, this morning, address you 
as financiers. I address you as moralists and Christian 
men and women, who before God have a responsibility 



The Calling of the Apostles.—" And as ye go, preach, saying, The 
Kingdom of heaven is at hand. . * * Freely ye have received, freely 
give. * * Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass hi your 
purses."— Matt. 10. 7. 



AMONG- THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



123 



for all this turpitude and scoundrelism, unless in every 
possible way you try to stop it and redeem it. "Oh!" 
says some one in the house, "such criminals as that can- 
not be reformed." I reply: Then you are stupidly ig- 
norant of Christianity. Who was the man on the right- 
hand cross when Jesus was expiring? A thief — a dying 
thief. Where did he go to ? To heaven. Christ said to 
him: "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." 
In that most conspicuous moment of the world's history, 
Christ demonstrating to all ages that the worst criminal 
can be saved. Who is that man in the Fourth Ward, 
New York, preaching the gospel every night of the 
week, and preaching it all the year round, and bringing 
more drunkards and thieves and criminals to the heart 
of a pardoning God than any twenty churches in Brook- 
lyn or New York. Jerry McAuley, the converted river 
thief. That man took me to his front window the other 
evening, and he said, "Do you see that grog-shop over 
there?" I said, "Yes; I see it." "Well," he said, "I 
once was pitched out of that by the proprietor for being 
drunken and noisy. The grace of God has done a great 
deal for me. I was going along the street the other day, 
and that man who owned that groggery then, and who 
owns it now, wanted a favor of me, and he called to me. 
He did not call me drunken Jerry; but he said Mister 
McAuley — Mister McAuley !" 

01 if the grace of God could do as much for that man 
it can save any outcast. If not, then what is the use of 
Paul's address when he says, "Let him that stole, steal 
no more"? I will tell you something — I do not care 
whether you like it or not — that at last, in heaven, there 
will be five hundred thousand converted thieves, pick- 
pockets, gamblers, debauchees, murderers and outcasts, 
all saved by the grace of God, washed clean and prepared 



124 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



for glory. That exquisite out there gives a twitch to his 
kid glove, and that lady brings the skirt of her silk dress 
nearer her, as though she were afraid of having that 
truth tarnish her. "Why," says some one in the house, 
"are you going to make heaven such a common place as 
that?" I do not make it common. God makes it com- 
mon. It is to be the most common place in the whole 
universe. By that I mean they are going to come up 
from all classes and conditions, and from the very lowest 
depths of society, washed clean by the grace of G-od, and 
entering heaven. "But," say some people, "what am I to 
do 2" I will tell you three things, anyhow, you can do. 
First, avoid putting people in your employ amid too 
great temptation. You can take a young man in your 
employ and put him in a position where nine hundred 
and ninety-nine chances out of a thousand are that he 
will do wrong. Now, I say you have no right to do that. 
If you have any mercy on the criminal classes, and if 
you do not want to multiply their number, look out how 
you put people under temptation. In the second place, 
you can do this: you can speak a cheerful word when a 
man wants to reform. What chance is there for those 
who have gone astray! Here they are in the lowest 
depths of society, first of all, with their evil proclivities ; 
then, with their evil associations. But suppose they 
conquer these evil proclivities, and break away from 
them. Now, they have come up to the door of society. 
Who will let them in? Will you? No; you dare not. 
They will go all around these doors of decent society, 
and find five hundred, and knock — no admittance; and 
knock — no admittance; and knock — no admittance. Now, 
I say it is your duty as a Christian man to help these 
people when they want to come up and come back. 
There is a third thing you can do, and that is, be the 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



125 



stanch friends of prison reform associations, home mis- 
sionary societies, children's aid societies, and all those 
beneficent institutions which are trying to save our cities. 
But perhaps I ought to do my own work now, leaving 
yours for you to do some other time. I will now do 
that work. Yery probably there is not in all this house 
one person who is known as a criminal, and yet I sup- 
pose there are scores of persons in this house who have 
done wrong. Now, perhaps I may meet their case 
healthfully and encouragingly when I tell them what I 
said to two young men. One young man said to me: 
"I have taken from my employer $2,500 in small amounts, 
but amounting to that. What shall I do?" I said, 
"Pay it back." He said, "I can't pay it back." Then 
I said, "Get your friends to help you pay it." He 
said, "I have no friends that will help me." Then 1 
said, "I will give you two items of advice: First, go 
home and kneel down before God and ask his pardon. 
Then, to-morrow morning, when you go over to the store, 
get the head men of the firm in the private office, and 
tell them you have something very important to com- 
municate, and let the door be locked. Then tell the 
whole story and ask their pardon. If they are decent 
men — not to say any thing about their being Christians 
or not Christians — if they are decent men, they will for- 
give you and help you to start again." "But," he said, 
"suppose they don't?" "Then," I said, "you have the 
Lord Almighty to see you through, and no man ever 
flung himself at Christ's feet but he was helped and de- 
livered." Another young man came to me and said, "I 
have taken money from my employer. What shall 1 
do?" I said, "Pay it back." "Well," he said, "I took 
a very large amount — I nearly paid it all back." I said, 
"Now, how long before you can pay it all back?" "Well," 



126 



AMONG THIEVES AND 18SAS8INB. 



he said, "I can in two weeks, but my conscience disturbs 
me very much, and I want your counsel." It was a del- 
icate case. I said to him, "You are sure you can pay it 
in two weeks?" "Yes; but," he said, "suppose I diet" I 
said to him: "If you can pay that all up, every farthing 
of it, in two weeks, pay it, and God don't ask you to dis- 
grace yourself, or your family, and you won't die in two 
weeks. I see by the way you have been paying this up 
that you are going to be delivered. Ask God's pardon 
for what you have done, and never do so again." 

It is very easy to be hard in making a rule, but I say 
the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of mercy, and 
wherever you find anybody in trouble, get him out. 
"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteoui 
man his thoughts." You see, I am preaching a very 
practical sermon this morning. I know what are all the 
temptations of business life, and I did not come on this 
platform this morning to discourage anybody. I come 
to speak a word of good cheer to all the wandering and 
the lost, and I believe I am speaking it. The fact is, 
these cities are going to be redeemed. You know there 
is going to be another deluge. "Why," you say, " 1 
thought the rainbow at the end of the great deluge, 
and the rainbow after every shower, was a sign that 
there would never be a deluge again 1" But there 
will be another deluge. It will rain more than forty 
days and forty nights. The ark that will float that 
deluge will be immeasurably larger than Noah's ark, for 
it will hold a quadrillion of passengers. It will be the 
deluge of mercy, and the ark that floats that deluge will 
have five doors — one at the north to let in the frozen 
populations; one at the south to let in the sweltering 
and the sunburned ; one at the east to let all China come 
in; one at the west, to let America in; one at the top, 



AMONG THIEVES AND ASSASSINS. 



to let Christ, with all his flashing train of cherubim and 
archangel enter. And, as the rainbow of the ancient 
deluge gave sign that there would never be a deluge of 
destruction again, so the rainbow of this last deluge will 
give sign that the deluge will never depart. " For the 
knowledge of God shall cover the earth, as the waters 
cover the sea." Oh! ship of salvation, sail on. With all 
thy countless freight of immortals, put for the eternal 
shore. The thunders of the last day shall be the can- 
nonade that will greet you into the harbor. Church 
triumphant, stretch down your arms of light across the 
gangway to welcome into port, church militant. " Hal- 
lelujah ! for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Hal- 
lelujahl Amen! 



128 



OLUB-HOUSJW. 



CHAPTER VXIL 

CLUB-HOUSES — LEGITIMATE AND ILLEGITIMATE. 

Let the young men now arise and play before us. — II. Samuel ii : 14 

There are two armies encamped by the pool of Gibeon. 
The time hangs heavily on their hands. One army pro- 
poses a game of sword- fencing. Nothing could be more 
healthful and innocent. The other army accepts the 
challenge Twelve men against twelve men, the sport 
opens. But something went adversely. Perhaps one 
of the swordsmen got an unlucky clip, or in some way 
had his ire aroused, and that which opened in sportful- 
ness ended in violence, each one taking his contestant by 
the hair, and then with the sword thrusting him in the 
side; so that that which opened in innocent fun ended in 
the massacre of all the twenty-four sportsmen. "Was 
there ever a better illustration of what was true then, 
and is true now, that that which is innocent may be madf 
destructive? 

In my explorations of the night side of city life, J 
have found out that there is a legitimate and an illegiti- 
mate use of the club-house. In the one case it may be- 
come a heathful recreation, like the contest of the twenty- 
four men in the text when they began their play; in the 
other case it becomes the massacre of body, mind, and 
soul, as in the case of these contestants of the text when 
they had gone too far with their sport. All intelligent 
ages have had their gatherings for political, social, ar- 
tistic, literary purposes — gatherings characterized by the 
blunt old Anglo-Saxon designation of "club." If you 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



129 



have read history, you know that there was a King's 
Head Club, a Ben Jonson Club; a Brothers' Club, to 
which Swift and Bolingbroke belonged; a Literary Club, 
which Burke and Goldsmith and Johnson and Boswell 
made immortal ; a Jacobin Club, a Benjamin Franklin 
Junto Club. Some of these to indicate justice, some to 
favor the arts, some io promote good manners, some to 
despoil the habits, some to destroy the soul. If one will 
write an honest history of the clubs of England, Ireland, 
Scotland, France, and the United States for the last one 
hundred years, he will write the history of the world. 
The club was an institution born on English soil, but it 
has thrived well in American atmosphere. We have in 
this cluster of cities a great number of them, with sev- 
enty thousand members, so called, so known; but who 
shall tell how many belong to that kind of club where 
men put purses together and open house, apportioning 
the expense of caterer and servants and room, and hav- 
ing a sort of domestic establishment — a style of club- 
house which in my opinion is far better than the ordi- 
nary hotel or boarding-house? But my object now is to 
speak of club-houses of a different sort, such as the Union 
League, which was established during the war, having 
patriotic purposes, which has now between thirteen and 
fourteen hundred members, which is now also the head- 
auarters of Republicanism; likewise the Manhattan, 
with large admission fee, four or five hundred members, 
the headquarters of the Democracy; like the Union Club, 
established in 1836, when New York had only a little 
over three hundred thousand inhabitants, their present 
building having cost $250,000 — they have a membership 
of between eight and nine hundred people, among them 
some of the ieaaing merchant princes of the land; like 
the Lotos, where journal iste dramatists, sculptors, paint- 



180 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



ers and artists, from all branches, gather together to dis- 
cuss newspapers, theatres, and elaborate art; like the 
Americus, which camps out in summer time, dimpling 
the pool with its hook and arousing the forest with its 
stag hunt; like the Century Club, which has its large 
group of venerable lawyers and poets; like the Army 
aud Navy Club, where those who engaged in warlike ser- 
vice once on the land or the sea now come together to 
talk over the days of carnage; like the New York Yacht 
Club, with its floating palaces of beauty upholstered with 
velvet and paneled with ebony, having all the advantages 
of electric bell, and of gaslight, and of king's pantry, 
one pleasure-boat costing three thousand, another fifteen 
thousand, another thirty thousand, another sixty-five 
thousand dollars, the fleet of pleasure-boats belonging to 
the club having cost over two million dollars; like the 
American Jockey Club, to which belong men who have 
a passionate fondness for horses, fine horses, as had Job 
when, in the Scriptures, he gives us a sketch of that 
king of beasts, the arch of its neck, the nervousness of 
its foot, the majesty of its gait, the whirlwind of its 
power, crying out: "Hast thou clothed his neck with 
thunder? The glory of his nostrils is terrible; he paw- 
eth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength, he saith 
among the trumpets ha! ha! and he smelleth the battle 
afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting;" 
like the Travelers' Club, the Blossom Club, the Palette 
1 Club, the Commercial Club, the Liberal Club, the Stable 
Gang Club, the Amateur Boat Club, the gambling clubs, 
the wine clubs, the clubs of all sizes, the clubs of all 
morals, clubs as good as good can be, and clubs as bad as 
bad can be, clubs innumerable. No series of sermons 
on the night side of city life would be complete without a 
sketch of the clubs, which, after dark, are in full blast. 



• 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



131 



During the day they are comparatively lazy places. 
Here and there an aged man reading a newspaper, or an 
employee dusting a sofa, or a clerk writing up the ac- 
counts; but when the curtain of the night falls on the 
natural day, then the curtain of the club-house hoists 
for the entertainment. Let us hasten up, now, the mar- 
ble stairs. What an imperial hallway I See! here are 
parlors on this side, with the upholstery of the Kremlin 
and the Tuilleries ; and here are dining-halls that chal- 
lange you to mention any luxury that they cannot afford; 
and here are galleries with sculpture, and paintings, and 
lithographs, and drawings from the best of artists, Crop- 
sey, and Bierstadt, and Church, and Hart, and Gifford — 
pictures for every mood, whether you are impassioned or 
placid; shipwreck, or sunlight over the sea; Sheridan's 
Ride, or the noonday party of the farmers under the 
tree; foaming deer pursued by the hounds in theAdiron- 
dacks, or the sheep on the lawn. On this side there are 
reading-rooms where you find all newspapers and maga- 
zines. On that side there is a library, where you find all 
books, from hermeneutics to the fairy tale. Coming in 
and out there are gentlemen, some of whom stay ten 
minutes, others stay many hours. Some of these are 
from luxuriant homes, and they have excused themselves 
for a while from the domestic circle that they may enjoy 
the larger sociability of the club-house. These are from 
dismembered households, and they have a plain lodging 
somewhere, but they come to this club-room to have their 
chief enjoyment. One blackball amid ten votes will de- 
feat a man's becoming a member. For rowdyism, for 
drunkenness, for gambling, for any kind of misdemeanor, 
a member is dropped out. Brilliant club-house from top 
to bottom. The chandeliers, the plate, the furniture, the 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



companionship, the literature, the social prestige, a com- 
plete enchantment. 

But the evening is passing on, and so we hasten 
through the hall and down the steps, and into the street, 
and from block to block until we come to another style 
of club-house. Opening the door, we find the fumes 
of strong drink and tobacco something almost intolera- 
ble. These young men at this table, it is easy to under- 
stand what they are at, from the flushed cheek, the intent 
look, the almost angry way of tossing the dice, or of 
moving the "chips." They are gambling. At another 
table are men who are telling vile stories. They are 
three-fourths intoxicated, and between 12 and 1 o'clock 
they will go staggering, hooting, swearing, shouting on 
their way home. That is an only son. On him all kind- 
ness, all care, all culture has been bestowed. He is pay- 
ing his parents in this way for their kindness. That is 
a young married man, who, only a few months ago, at the 
altar, made promises of kindness and fidelity, every one 
of which he has broken . Walk through and see for your- 
self. Here are all the implements of dissipation and of 
quick death. As the hours of the night go away, the con- 
versation becomes imbecile and more debasing. Now it 
is time to shut up. Those who are able to stand will get 
out on the pavement and balance themselves against the 
lamp-post, or against the railings of the fence. The 
young man who is not able to stand will have a bed im- 
provised for him in the club-house, or two not quite so 
overcome with liquor will conduct him to his father's 
house, and they will ring the door-bell, and the door will 
open, and the two imbecile escorts will introduce into 
the hallway the ghastliest and most hellish spectacle that 
ever enters a front door — a drunken son. If the dissi- 
pating club-houses of this country would make a contract 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



133 



with the Inferno to provide it ten thousand men a year 
and for twenty years, on the condition that no more 
should be asked of them, the club-houses could afford to 
make that contract, for they would save homesteads, save 
fortunes, save bodies, minds, and souls. The ten thou- 
sand men who would be sacrificed by that contract would 
be but a small part of the multitude sacrificed without 
the contract. But I make a vast difference between 
clubs. I have belonged to four clubs: A theological 
club, a ball club, and two literary clubs. I got from 
them physical rejuvenation and moral health. What 
shall be the principle? If God will help me, I will lay 
down three principles by which you may judge whether 
the club where you are a member, or the club to which 
you have been invited, is a legitimate or an illegitimate 
club-house. 

First of all I want you to test the club by its influences 
on home, if you have a home. I have been told by a 
prominent gentleman in club life that three-fourths of 
the members of the great clubs of these cities are mar- 
ried men. That wife soon loses her influence over her 
hnsband who nervously and foolishly looks upon all even- 
ing absence as an assault on domesticity. How are the 
great enterprises of art and literature and beneficence 
and public weal to be carried on if every man is to have 
his world bounded on one side by his front door-step, and 
on the other side by his back window, knowing nothing 
higher than his own attic, or nothing lower than his own 
cellar? That wife who becomes jealous of her husband's 
attention to art, or literature, or religion, or charity, is 
breaking her own sceptre of conjugal power. I know in 
this church an instance where a wife thought that her 
husband was giving too many nights to Christian ser- 
vice, to charitable service, to prayer- meetings, and to 



184 CLUB-HOUSES. 

religious convocation. She sytematically decoyed him 
away until now he attends neitner this nor any other 
church, and is on a rapid way to destruction, his morals 
gone, his money gone, and, I fear, his soul gone. Let 
any Christian wife rejoice when her husband consecrates 
evenings to the service of God, or to charity, or to art, or 

anything elevated; but let not men sacrifice home life 
to club life. I have the rolls of the members of a great 
many of the prominent clubs of these cities, and I can 
point out to you a great many names of men who are guilty 
of this sacrilege. They are as genial as angels at the club- 
house, and as ugly as sin at home. They are generous 
on all subjects of wine suppers, yachts, and fast horses, 
but they are stingy about the wife's dress and the chil- 
dren's shoes. That man has made that which might be 
a healthful recreation an usurper of his affections, and 
he has married it, and he is guilty of moral bigamy. 
Under this process the wife, whatever her features, be- 
comes uninteresting and homely. He becomes critical 
of her, does not like the dress, does not like the way she 
arranges her hair, is amazed that he ever was so unro- 
mantic as to offer her hand and heart. She is always 
wanting money, money, when she ought to be discussing 
Eclipses, and Dexter, and Derby Day, and English drags 
with six horses, all answering the pull of one "ribbon." 

I tell you, there are thousands of houses in Brooklyn 
and New York being clubbed to death! There are club- 
houses in these cities where membership always involves 
domestic shipwreck. Tell me that a man has joined a 
certain club, tell me nothing more about him for ten 
years, and I will write his history if he be still alive. 
The man is a wine-guzzler, his wife broken-hearted or 
prematurely old, his fortune gone or reduced, and his 
home a mere name in a directory. Here are six secular 




CHRIST'S TRIUMPHAL ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. 

" And the multitudes that went before, and that followed cried, say- 
ing, Hosanria to the Son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the 
name of the Lord."— Matt. 21. 9. 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



135 



nights in the week. " What shall I do with theinf ' says 
the father and the husband. " I will give four of those 
nights to the improvement and entertainment of my fam- 
ily, either at home or in good neighborhood; I will 
devote one to charitable institutions; I will devote one 
to the club." I congratulate you. Here is a man who 
says, " I will make a different division of the six nights. 
I will take three for the club and three for other pur- 
poses." I tremble. Here is a man who says, " Out of 
the six secular nights of the week, I will devote five to 
the club-house and one to the home, which night I will 
spend in scowling like a March squall, wishing I was out 
spending it as I had spent the other five." That man's 
obituary is written. Not one out of ten thousand that 
ever gets so far on the wrong road ever stops. Gradu- 
ally his health will fail, through late hours and through 
too much stimulus. He will be first-rate prey for erysip- 
elas and rheumatism of the heart. The doctor coming 
in will at a glance see it is not only present disease he 
must fight, but years of fast living. The clergyman, for 
the sake of the feelings of the family, on the funeral day 
will only talk in religious generalities. The men who 
got his yacht in the eternal rapids will not be at the 
obsequies. They will have pressing engagements that 
day. They will send flowers to the coffin-lid, and send 
their wives to utter words of sympathy, but they will 
have engagements elsewhere. They never come. Bring 
me mallet and chisel, and I will cut on the tombstone 
that man's epitaph, " Blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord." " No," you say, " that would not be appropriate." 
" Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last 
end be like his." " No," you say, " that would not be 
appropriate." Then give me the mallet and the chisel, 
and I will cut an honest epitaph : Here lies the victim 



136 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



of a dissipating club-house !" I think that damage ie 
often done by the scions of some aristocratic family, who 
belong to one of these dissipating club-houses. People 
coming up from humbler classes feel it an honor to be- 
long to the same club, forgetting the fact that many of 
the sons and grandsons of the large commercial estab 
lishments of the last generation are now, as to mind, 
imbecile; as to body, diseased; as tn morals, rotten. 
They would have got through their property long ago ii 
they had had full possession of it; but the wily ancestors, 
who got the money by hard knocks, foresaw how it was to 
be, and they tied up everything in the will.* Now, there 
is nothing of that unworthy descendant but his grand- 
father's name and roast beef rotundity. And yet how 
many steamers there are which feel honored to lash fast 
that worm-eaten tug, though it drags them straight into 
the breakers. 

Another test by which you can find whether your club 
is legitimate or illegitimate — the effect it has on your 
secular occupation. I can understand how through such 
an institution a man can reach commercial successes. 
I know some men have formed their best business rela 
tions through such a channel. If the club has advan- 
taged you in an honorable calling it is a legitimate club. 
But has your credit failed? Are bargain-makers more 
cautious how they trust you with a bill of goods ? Have 
the men whose names were down in the commercial 
agency A 1 before they entered the club, been going down 
since in commercial standing? Then look out! You 
and I every day know of commercial establishments going 
to ruin through the social excesses of one or two mem- 
bers. Their fortunes beaten to death with ball-players' 
bat, or cut amidships by the front prow of "the regatta, 
>r going down under the swift hoofs of the fast horses, 



OLUB-HOUSES. 



137 



or drowned in large potations of Cognac and Mononga- 
hela. Their club-house was the " Loch Earn." Their 
business house was the " Yille du Havre." They struck, 
and the "Yille du Havre" went under. Or, to take 
illustration from last Monday night's disaster: Their 
club-house was the " Eilion," and their business house 
was the " Pommerania." They struck, and the " Fom- 
merania" went under. 

A third test by which you may know whether the club 
to which you belong, or the club to whose membership 
you are invited, is a legitimate club or an illegitimate 
club, is this: What is its effect on your sense of moral 
and religious obligation? Now, if I should take the 
names of all the people in this audience this morning, 
and put them on a roll and then I should lay that roll 
back of this organ, and a hundred years from now 
some one should take that roll and call it from A to Z, 
there would not one of you answer. I say that any 
association that makes me forget that fact is a bad 
association. When I go to Chicago I am sometimes 
perplexed at Buffalo, as I suppose many travelers 
are, as to whether it is better to take the Lake Shore 
route or the Michigan Central, equally expeditious and 
equally safe, getting at the destination at the same time; 
but suppose that I hear that on one route the track is 
torn up, and the bridges are torn down, and the switches 
are unlocked? It will not take me a great while to de- 
cide which road to take. Now, here are two roads into 
the future, the Christian and the unchristian, the safe 
and the unsafe. Any institution or any association that 
confuses my idea in regard to that fact is a bad institu- 
tion and a bad association. I had prayers before I joined 
the club. Did I have them after? I attended the house 
of God before I connected myself with the club. Sine* 



138 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



that union with the club do I absent myself from reli- 
gious influences ? Which would you rather have in your 
hand when you come to die, a pack of cards or a Bible? 
Which would you rather have pressed to your lips in the 
closing moment, the cup of Belshazzarean wassail or the 
chalice of Christian communion ? Who would you rather 
have for your pall-bearers, the elders of a Christian 
church, or the companions whose conversation was full 
of slang and innuendo % Who would you rather have for 
your eternal companions, those men who spend their 
evenings betting, gambling, swearing, carousing, and 
telling vile stories, or your little child, that bright girl 
whom the Lord took? Oh! you would not have been 
away 60 much nights, would you, if you had known she 
was going away so soon ? Dear me, your house has never 
been the same place since. Your wife has never bright- 
ened up. She has not got over it; she never will g° A 
over it. How long the evenings are, with no one to put 
to bed, and no one to tell the beautiful Bible story! 
What a pity it is that you cannot spend more evenings 
at home in trying to help her bear that sorrow! Yon 
can never drown that grief in the wine cup. You can 
never break away from the little arms that used to be 
flung around your neck when she used to say, " Papa, 
do stay home to-night — do stay home to-night." You 
will never be able to wipe from your lips the dying kiss 
of your little girl. The fascination of a dissipating club- 
house is so great that sometimes a man has turned his 
back on his home when his child was dying of scarlet 
fever. He went away. Before he got back at midnight 
the eyes had been closed, the undertaker had done his 
work, and the wife, worn out with three weeks watching, 
lay unconscious in the next room. Then there is a rat- 
tling of the night-key in the door, and the returned father 



CLUB-HOUSES. 



139 



eomes up stairs, and he sees the cradle gone, and the 
windows up, and sajs, "What's the matter?" In the 
judgment day he will find out what was the matter. 
Oh! man astray, God help you! I am going to make a 
very stout rope. You know that sometimes a rope- 
maker will take very small threads, and wind them to- 
gether until, after a while, they become ship-cable. And 
I am going to take some very small, delicate threads 
and wind them together until they make a very stout 
rope. I will take all the memories of the marriage day, 
a thread of laughter, a thread of light, a thread of music, 
a thread of banqueting, a thread of congratulation, and 
I twist them together, and I have one strand. Then I 
take a thread of the hour of the first advent in your house, 
a thread of the darkness that preceded, and a thread of 
the light that followed, and a thread of the beautiful 
scarf that little child used to wear when she bounded out 
at eventide to greet you, and then a thread of the beau- 
tiful dress in which you laid her away for the resurrec- 
tion. And then I twist all these threads together, and 
[ have another strand. Then I take a thread of the 
scarlet robe of a suffering Christ, and a thread of the 
white raiment of your loved ones before the throne, and a 
string of the harp cherubic, and a string of the harp 
seraphic, and I twist them all together, and I have a third 
strand. " Oh!" you say, " either strand is strong enough 
io hold fast a world." No, I will take these strands, 
and I will twist them together, and one end of that 
rope I will fasten, not to the communion table for it shall 
be removed — not to a pillar of the organ, for that will 
crumble in the ages, but I wind it 'round and 'round 
the cross of a sympathizing Christ, and having fastened 
one end of the rope to the cross I throw the other end 
to you. Lay hold of it! Pull for your life! Pull for 
heaven! 



140 



POISON IN THE OALDBOH. 



CHAPTER IX. 

POISON IN THE CALDRON. 
a O thou man of God, there is death in the pot w — II. Kings iv: 10 

Elisha had gone down to lecture to the theological 
students in the seminary at Gilgal. He found the stu- 
dents very hungry. Students are apt to be. In order 
that he might proceed with his lectures successfully, he 
sends out some servants to gather food for these hungry 
students. The servants are somewhat reckless in their 
work, and while they gather up some healthful herbs, 
they at the same time gather coloquintida, a bitter, pois- 
onous, deathful weed, and they bring all the herbs to 
the house and put them in a caldron and stir them up, 
and then bring the food to the table, where are seated 
the students and their professor. One of the students 
takes some of the mixture and puts it to his lips, and 
immediately tastes the coloquintida, and he cries out to 
the professor: "O thou man of God, there is death in the 
pot." What consternation it threw upon the group. 
What a fortunate thing it was he found out in time, so 
as to save the lives of his comrades. 

Well, there are now in the world a great many caldrons 
of death. The coloquintida of mighty temptations fills 
them. Some taste and quit, and are saved; others taste 
and eat on, and die. Is not that minister of Christ 
doing the right thing when he points out these caldrons 
of iniquity and cries the alarm, saying: " Beware I There 
is death in the pot" ? 

In a palace in Florence there is a fresco of Giotto. 



P0IS0.N IN THE CALDEON. 



141 



For many years that fresco was covered up with two 
inches thickness of whitewash, and it has only been ir 
recent times that the hand of art has restored that fresa 
"What sacrilege," you say, " to destroy the work of such 
<* great master." But there is no sadness in that com- 
pared with the fact that the image of God in the soul 
has been covered up and almost obliterated so that no 
human hand can restore the Divine lineaments. 

Iniquity is a coarse, jagged thing, that needs to be 
roughly handled. You have no right to garland it with 
fine phrase or lustrous rhetoric. You cannot catch a 
buffalo with a silken lasso. Men have no objections to 
having their sin looked at in a pleasant light. They 
will be very glad to sit for their photographs if you mak 
a handsome picture. But every Christian philanthropist 
must sometimes go forth and come in violent collision 
with transgression. I was in a whaling port, and I saw 
a vessel that had been on a whaling cruise come into the 
harbor, and it had patched sail and spliced rigging and 
bespattered deck, showing hard times and rough work. 
And so I have seen Christian philanthropists come back 
from some crusade against public iniquities. They have 
been compelled to acknowledge that it has not been 
yachting over summer lakes, but it has been outriding a 
tempest and harpooning great Behemoths. 

A company of emigrants settle in a wild region. The 
very first day a beast from the mountains comes down 
and carries off one of the children, and the next day 
another beast comes and carries off another child. 
Forthwith all the neighbors band together, and with 
torch in one hand and gun in the other they go down 
into the caverns where those wild beasts are secreted, 
and slay them. 

Now, my Christian friends, this morning I want to go 



U2 



POISON IN THE CALDKON. 



back of all public iniquity and find out its hiding-place. 
I want to know what are the sources of its power, or, to 
resume the figure of my text, I want to know what are 
the caldrons from which these iniquities are dipped out. 

Unhappy and undisciplined homes are the source of 
much iniquity. A good home is deathless in its influ- 
ences. Parents may be gone. The old homestead may 
be sold and have passed out of the possession of the 
family. The house itself may be torn down. The 
meadow brook that ran in front of the house may have 
changed its course or have dried up. The long line of 
old-fashioned sunflowers and the hedges of wild rose may 
have been graded, and in place thereof are now the beau- 
ties of modern gardening. The old poplar tree may have 
cast down its crown of verdure and may have fallen. 
You say you would like to go back a little while and see 
that home, and you go, and oh, how changed it is I Yet 
that place will never lose its charm over your soul. 
That first earthly home will thrill through your ever- 
lasting career. The dew-drops that you dashed from the 
chickweed as you drove the cows afield thirty years ago; 
the fire flies that flashed in your father's home on sum- 
mer nights when the evenings were too short for a can- 
dle; the tinged pebbles that you gathered in your apron 
on the margin of the brook ; the berries that you strung 
into a necklace, and the daisies that you plucked for 
your hair, — all have gone into your sentiments and 
tastes, and you will never get over them. The trundle 
bed where you slept; the chair where you sat; the blue- 
edged dish out of which you ate; your sister's skipping- 
rope; your brother's ball; your kite; your hoop; your 
mother's smile; your father's frown, — they are all part 
of the fibre of your immortal nature. The mother of 
missionary Schwartz threw light on the dusky brow of 



POISON IN THE CALDRON. 



143 



the savages to whom he preached long after she was 
dead. The mother of Lord Byron pursued him, as with 
a fiend's fury, into all lands, stretching gloom and death 
into "Childe Harold" and "Don Juan," and hovering 
in darkness over the lonely grave of Missolonghi. 

Kascally and vagabond people for the most part come 
forth from unhappy homes. Parents harsh and cruel on 
the one hand, or on the other lenient to perfect looseness, 
are raising up a generation of vipers. A home in which 
scolding and fault-finding predominate is blood relation 
to the gallows and penitentiary. Petulance is a reptile 
that may crawl up into the family nest and crush it. 
There are parents who disgust their children even with 
religion. They scold their little ones for not loving 
God. They go about even their religious duties in an 
exasperating way. Their house is full of the war-whoop 
of contention, and from such scenes husbands and child- 
ren dash out into places of dissipation to find their lost 
peace, or the peace they never had. O, is there some 
mother here, like Hagar, leading her Ishmael into the 
desert to be smitten of the thirst and parched in the 
sand? In the solemn birth-hour a voice fell straight 
from the skies into that dwelling, saying: " Take this 
child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy 
wages." When angels of God at nightfall hover over that 
dwelling, do they hear the little ones lisp the name of 
Jesus? O, traveller for eternity, with your little ones 
gathered up under your robes, are you sure you are on 
the right road, or are you leading them on a dangerous 
and winding bridle path, off which their inexperienced 
feet may slip, and up which comes the howling of the 
wolf and the sound of loosening ledge and tumbling 
avalanche! Blessed the family altar where the children 
kneel. Blessed the cradle where the Christian mother 



144 



POISON IN THE CALDRON. 



rocks the Christian child. Blessed the song the little 
one sings at nightfall when sleep is closing the eyes and 
roosening the hand from the toy on the pillow. Blessed 
the mother's heart whose every throb is a prayer to God 
for the salvation of her children. The world grows old, 
and soon the stars will cease to illuminate it, and the 
herbage to clothe it, and the mountains to guard it, and 
the waters to refresh it, and the heavens to overspan it, 
and the long story of its sin, and shame, and glory, and 
triumph will turn into ashes; but parental influences, 
starting in the early home, will roll on and up into the 
great eternity, blooming in all the joy, waving in all the 
triumph, exulting in all the song of heaven, or groaning 
in all the pain, and shrinking back into all the shame, 
and frowning in all the darkness of the great prison 
house. O, father 1 O, mother! in which direction is 
your influence tending? 

I verily believe that three-fourths of the wickedness 
of the great city runs out rank and putrid from undisci- 
plined homes. Sometimes I know there is an exception. 
From a bright, beautiful, cheerful Christian home a 
husband or a son will go off to die. How long you have 
had that boy in your prayer. He does not know the 
tears you have shed. He knows nothing about the 
sleepless nights you have passed about him. He started 
on the downward road, and will not stop, call you never 
so tenderly. O, it is hard, it is very hard, after having 
expended so much kindness and care to get such pay of 
ingratitude. There is many a young man, proud of his 
mother, who would strike into the dust the dastard who 
would dare to do her wrong, whose hand this morning, 
by his first step in sin, is sharpening a dagger to plunge 
through that mother's heart. I saw it. The telegram 
summoned him. I saw him come in scarred and bloated, 



POISON IN THE OALDBON. 145 

to look upon the lifeless form of his mother — those grey 
locks pushed back over the wrinkled brow he had whit- 
ened bj his waywardness. Those eyes had raineo 
floods of tears over his iniquity. That still, white hand 
had written many a loving letter of counsel and invita- 
tion. He had broken that old heart. When he came in 
he threw himself on the coffin and sobbed outright and 
cried: "Mother! mother!" but the lips that kissed him 
in infancy and that had spoken so kindly on other days 
when he came home, spake not. They were sealed for- 
ever. Rather than such a memory in my soul, 1 would 
have rolled on me now the Alps and the Himalayas. 
" The eye that mocketh its father, and refuseth to obey 
its mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and 
the young eagles shall eat it." 

The second caldron of iniquity to which I point you 
is an indolent life. There are young men coming to our 
city with industrious habits, and yet they see in the city 
a great many men who seem to get along without any 
work. They have no business, and yet they are better 
dressed than industrious men, and they seem to have 
more facilities of access to amusements. They have 
plenty of time to spare to hang around the engine house, 
or the Pierrepont House, or the Saint Nicholas, or the 
other beautiful hotels; or lounge around the City Hall, 
their hands in their pockets, a tooth-pick in their mouth, 
waiting for some crumb to fall from the office-holder's 
table; or gazing at the criminals as they come up in the 
morning from the station-houses, jeering at them as they 
leap from the city van to the Court House steps. Ah, I 
would as soon think of standing at the gate of Green- 
wood to enjoy a funeral as to stand at the City Hall in 
the morning, when the city van drives up, to look at the 
carcasses of men and women slain for both worlds. The 



146 



POISON IN THE CALDBON. 



industrious people see these idlers standing about, and 
they wonder how they make their living. I wonder, too. 
They have plenty of money for the ride; they have 
plenty of money to bet on the boat race or the horse race; 
they can discuss the flavor of the costliest wines ; they 
they have the best seats at Booth's Theater. But still 
you ask me: "How do they get their money f Well, 
my friends, there are four ways of getting money — just 
four. By inheritance; by earning it; by begging it; by 
stealing it. Now, there are many people in our com- 
munity who seem to have plenty of money, who did not 
inherit it, and who did not earn it, and who did not beg 
it. You must take the responsibility of saying how 
they got it. There are men who get tired of the drudg- 
ery of life, and see these prosperous idlers; and they con- 
sort with them, and they learn the same tricks, and they 
go to the same ruin — at death their departure causing 
no more mourning than is felt for the fast horse that 
they foundered and killed by a too hasty watering at 
" Tunison's." O, the pressure on the industrious young 
men is tremendous when they see people all around 
them full of seeming success but doing nothing. The 
multitude of those who get their living by sleight of 
hand is multiplying. What is the use of working in the 
store, or office, or shop, or on the scaffold, or by the 
forge, when you can get your living by your wits? A 
merchant in New York was passing along the street one 
evening, and he saw one of his clerks, half disguised, 
going into one of the low theaters. He said within him- 
self: " I must look out for that young man." One morn- 
ing the merchant came to his store, and this clerk of 
whom I have been speaking came up, in assumed con- 
sternation, and said: "The store has been on fire. I have 
got it put out; but many of the goods are gone." The 



TOISON IN THK OALDBOK. 



147 



merchant instantly seized the young man by the collar, 
and said: "I have had enough of this. You can't de- 
ceive me. Where are the goods you stole?" And the 
clerk confessed it instantly. The young man had gone 
into the plan of making money by sleight of hand and 
by his wits. 

You will get out of this world just so much as, under 
God, you earn by your own hand and brain. Horatius 
was told he might have so much land as he could plough 
around in one day with a yoke of oxen, and I have no- 
ticed that men get nothing in this world, that is worth 
possessing, of a financial, moral, or spiritual nature, save 
they get it by their own hard work. It is just so much 
as, from the morning to the evening of your life, you 
can plough around by your own continuous and hard- 
sweating industries. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard, 
consider her ways, and be wise." ^ 

Another caldron of iniquity is the dram shop. Surely 
there is death in the pot. Anacharsis said that the vine 
had three grapes: pleasure, drunkenness, misery. Rich- 
ard III. drowned his own brother Clarence in a butt of 
wine — these two incidents quite typical. Every saloon 
built above ground, or dug underground is a center of 
evil. It may be licensed, and for some time it may con- 
duct its business in elegant style; but after awhile the 
cover will fall off, and you will see the iniquity in its 
right coloring. Plant a grog shop in the midst of the 
finest block of houses in your city, and the property will 
depreciate five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty per cent. Men en- 
gaged in the ruinons traffic sometimes say: "You don't 
appreciate the fact that the largest revenues paid to the 
Government are by our business." Then I remember 
what Gladstone, the prime minister of England, said to 
a committee of men engaged in that traffic when they 



POISOK IN THE CAiiDJiON. 



came to him to deplore that they were not treated with 
more consideration: "Gentlemen, don't be uneasy about 
the revenue. Give me thirty million sober people, and 
I will pay all the revenue, and have a large surplus." 
But, my friends, the ruin to property is a very small 
part of the evil. It takes everything that is sacred in 
the family, everything that is holy in religion, everything 
that is infinite in the soul, and tramples it into the mire. 

The marriage day has come. The happy pair at the 
altar. The music sounds. The gay lights flash. The 
feet bound up and down the drawing-room. Started on 
a bright voyage of life. Sails all up. The wind is abaft. 
You prophesy everything beautiful. But the scene 
changes. A dingy garret. No fire. On a broken chair 
sits a sorrowing woman. Her last hope gone. Poor, 
disgraced, trodden underfoot — she knows the despair of 
being a drunkard's wife. The gay barque that danced 
off on the marriage morning has become a battered hulk, 
dismasted and shipwrecked. 4 '0," she says, "he was as 
good a man as ever lived. He was so kind, he was so 
generous — no one better did God ever create than he; 
but the drink, the drink did it." 

A young man starts from the country home for the 
city* Through the agency of metropolitan friends he 
has obtained a place in a store or a bank. That morning, 
iii the farm house, the lights are kindled very early, and 
the boy's trunk is on the wagon. " I put a Bible in 
your trunk," says the mother, as she wipes the tears 
away with her apron. " My dear, I want you to read it 
when you get to town." "O," he says, "mother, don't 
you be worried about me. I know what I am about. I 
am old enough to take care of myself. Don't you be 
worried about me." The father says: "Be a good boy 
and write home ofteir. Your mother will want to hear 



POISON IN THE CALDBON. 



149 



from you." Crack! goes the whip, and away over the 
hills goes the wagon. The scene changes. Five years 
after and there is a hearse coming up the old lane im 
front of the farm house. Killed in a porter house fight, 
that son has come home to disgrace the sepulchre of his 
fathers. When the old people lift the coffin lid, and see 
the changed face, and see the gash in the temples where 
the life oozed out, they will wring their withered hands 
and look up to heaven and cry: "Cursed he rum! Ctjesed 
be rum!" 

Lorenzo de Medici was sick, and his friends thought 
that if they could dissolve some pearls In his cup, and 
then get him to swallow them, he would be cured. And 
so these valuable pearls were dissolved in his cup, and he 
drank them. What an expensive draught! But do you 
know that drunkenness puts into its cup the pearl of 
physical health, the pearl of domestic happiness, the 
pearl of earthly usefulness, the pearl of Christian hope, 
the pearl of an everlasting heaven, and then presses it to 
the lips? And oh, what an expensive draught! The 
dram shop is the gate of hell. While I speak there are 
Bome of you in the outer circles of this terrible mael- 
strom, and in the name of God I cry the alarm: "Put 
back now or never!" You say you are kind, and genial ? 
and generous. I do not doubt it; but so much more the 
peril. Mean men never drink, unless some one else 
treats them. But the men who are in the front rank of 
this destructive habit are those who have a fine educa- 
tion, large hearts, genial natures and splendid prospects. 
This sin chooses the fattest lambs for sacrifice. What 
garlands of victory this carbuncled hand of drunkenness 
hath snatched from the brow of the orator and poet. 
What gleaming lights of generosity it has put out in 
midnight darkness- Come with me and look over — 



150 



POISON IN THE CALDRON. 



come and hang over — look down into it while I lift off 
the cover, and you may see the loathsome, boiling seeth- 
ing, groaning, agonizing, blaspheming hell of the drunk- 
ard. There is everlasting death in the pot. 

I have thought it might be appropriate at this season 
of the year, when we all mingle in hilarities, to warn our 
young friends not to put the cup of intoxication to their 
lips, and not to make these glorious seasons of family 
reunion and neighborhood congratulation the beginning 
of a long road of dissipation and sorrow. Young man! 
by the grace of God, be master of your appetites and 
passions. Frederick the Great, before he became "the 
Great," was seated with his roystering companions, and 
they were drinking, and hallooing, and almost imbecile, 
when word came to him that his father was dead, and 
consequently the crown was to pass to him. He rose up 
from among the boisterous crew, and stepped out and 
cried: "Stop your fooling; I am emperor 1" Would to 
God that this day you might bring all your appetites 
and all your passions in subjection. "Better is he that 
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." Be emperor I 
Tea, you are called this morning to be king3 and to be 
priests unto God for ever. In the solemn hours of this 
closing year, and about to enter upon another year, if the 
Lord shall spare your lives for a few days longer, resolve 
that you will serve Him. Soon all the days and years 
of your life will have passed away, and then, the great 
eternity. "Kejoice, O, young man, in thy youth; let 
thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk 
thou in the sight of thine own eyes, and in the way of 
thine own heart; but know thou that for all these things 
God will bring thee into judgment" 



A OABT-JSOPE INIQUITY. 



151 



OHAPTEK X. 

A CART-ROPE INIQUITY 

•'Woe onto them that sin as it were with a cart-rope." — Isaiah v: 18. 

There are some iniquities that only nibble at the heart 
After a lifetime of their work, the man still stands up- 
right, respected and honored. These vermin have not 
strength enough to gnaw through a man's character. 
But there are other transgressions that lift themselves 
up to gigantic proportions, and seize hold of a man and 
bind him with thongs for ever. There are some iniqui- 
ties that have such great emphasis of evil that he who com- 
mits them may be said to sin as with a cart-rope. I suppose 
you know how they make a great rope. The stuff out of 
which it is fashioned is nothing but tow which you pull 
apart without any exertion of your fingers. This is spun 
into threads, any one of which you could easily snap, 
but a great many of these threads are interwound — then 
you have* a rope strong enough to bind an ox, or hold a 
ship in a tempest. I speak to you of the sin of gambling. 
A cart-rope in strength is that sin, and yet I wish more 
especially to draw your attention to the small threads of 
influence out of which that mighty iniquity is twisted. 
This crime is on the advance, so that it is well not only 
that fathers, and brothers, and sons, be interested in such 
a discussion, but that wives, and mothers, and sisters, and 
daughters look out lest their present home be sacrificed, 
or their intended home be blasted. 'No man, no woman, 
can stand aloof from such a subject as this and say: "It 
has no practical bearing upon my life;" for there may be 



152 



▲ OART-KOPE INIQUITY. 



in a short time in your history an experience in which 
you will find that the discussion involved three worlds — 
earth, heaven, hell. There are in this cluster of cities 
about eight hundred confessed gambling establishments. 
There are about three thousand five hundred professional 
gamblers. Out of the eight hundred gambling establish- 
ments, how many of them do you suppose profess to be 
honest? Ten. These ten professing to be honest because 
they are merely the ante-chamber to the seven hundred 
and ninety that are acknowledged fraudulent. There are; 
first-class gambling establishments. You step a little 
way out of Broadway. You go up the marble stairs. 
You ring the bell. The liveried servant introduces you. 
The walls are lavendar tinted. The mantles are of Ver- 
mont marble. The pictures are " Jephtha's Daughter," 
and Dore's " Dante's and Virgil's Frozen Region of 
Hell," a most appropriate selection, this last, for the place. 
There is the roulette table, the finest, costliest, most ex- 
quisite piece of furniture in the United States. Thero 
is the banqueting-room where, free of charge to the 
guests, you may find the plate, and viands, and winet, 
and cigars, sumptuous beyond parallel. Then you come 
to the second-class gambling-establishment. To it you 
are introduced by a card through some "roper in." 
Having entered, you must either gamble or fight. Sand- 
ed cards, dice loaded with quicksilver, poor drinks mixed 
with more poor drinks, will soon help you to get rid of 
all your money to a tune in short metre without staccato 
passages. You wanted to see. You saw. The low vil- 
lains of that place watch you as you come in. Does not 
the panther, squat in the grass, know a calf when he sees 
it ? Wrangle not for your rights in that place, or your 
body will be thrown bloody into the street, or dead into 
the East River. 



▲ CART-ROPE INIQUITY. 



153 



Yon go along a little further and find the policy estab- 
lishment. In that place you bet on numbers. Betting 
on two numbers is called a " saddle;" betting on three 
numbers is called a " gig ;" betting on four numbers is 
called a "horse;" and there are thousands of our young 
men leaping into that "saddle," and mounting that 
"gig," and behind that "horse," riding to perdition. 
There is always one kind of sign on the door — " Ex- 
change; " a most appropriate title for the door, for there, 
in that room, a man exchanges health, peace, and heaven, 
for loss of health, loss of home, loss of family, loss of im- 
mortal soul. Exchange sure enough and infinite enough. 

Now you acknowledge that is a cart-rope of evil, but 
you want to know what are the small threads out of which 
it is made. There is, in many, a disposition to hazard. 
They feel a delight in walking near a precipice because 
of the sense of danger. There are people who go upon 
Jungfrau, not for the largeness of the prospect, but for the 
feeling that they have of thinking: "What would hap- 
pen if I should fall off? " There are persons who have 
their blood filliped and accelerated by skating very near 
an air hole. There are men who find a positive delight 
in driving within two inches of the edge of a bridge. It 
is this disposition to hazard that finds development in 
gaming practices. Here are five hundred dollars. I may 
stake them. If I stake them I may lose them ; but I 
may win five thousand dollars. Whichever way it turns, 
I have the excitement. Shuffle the cards. Lost! Heart 
thumps. Head dizzy. At it again — just to gratify this 
desire for hazard. 

Then there are others who go into this sin through 
sheer desire for gain. It is especially so with profes- 
sional gamblers. They always keep cool. They never 
drink enough to unbalance their judgment. They do not 



A CART-EOPE INIQUITY. 



see the dice so much as they see the dollar, beyond the 
dice, and for that they watch as the spider in the web, 
looking as if dead nntil the fly passes. Thousands of 
young men in the hope of gain go into these practices. 
They say: "Well, my salary is not enough to allow this 
luxuriance. I don't get enough from my store, office, or 
shop. I ought to have finer apartments. I ought to have 
better wines. I ought to have more richly flavored 
cigars. I ought to be able to entertain my friends more 
expensively. I wont stand this any longer. I can with 
one brilliant stroke make a fortune. Now, here goes, 
principle or no principle, heaven or hell. Who cares? " 
When a young man makes up his mind to live beyond 
his income, Satan has bought him out and out, and it is 
only a question of time when the goods are to be deliv- 
ered. The thing is done. You may plant in the way all 
the batteries of truth and righteousness, that man is bound 
to go on. When a man makes one thousand dollars a 
year and spends one thousand two hundred dollars ; when 
a young man makes one thousand five hundred dollars 
and spends one thousand seven hundred dollars, all the 
harpies of darkness cry out: "Hal ha! we have him," 
and they have. How to get the extra five hundred dol- 
lars or the extra two thousand dollars is the question. 
He says: " Here is my friend who started out the other 
day with but little money, and in one night, so great was 
his luck, he rolled up hundreds and thousands of dollars. 
If he got it, why not I? It is such dull work, this adding 
up of long lines of figures in the counting-house; this 
pulling down of a hundred yards of goods and selling a 
remnant; this always waiting upon somebody else, when 
I could put one hundred dollars on the ace, and pick up 
a thousand." This sin works very insidiously. 

Other sins sound the drum, and flaunt the flag, and 



A CAB1-K0PE INIQUITY. 



155 



gather their recruits with wild huzza, but this marches 
its procession of pale victims in dead of night, in silence, 
and when they drop into the grave there is not so much 
sound as the click of a dice. O, how many have gone 
down under it. Look at those men who were once highly 
prospered. Now, their forehead is licked by a tongue of 
flame that will never go out. In their souls are plunged 
the beaks that will never be lifted. Swing open the door 
of that man's heart and you see a coil of adders wrig- 
gling their indescribable horror until you turn away 
and hide your face and ask God to help you to forget it. 
The most of this evil is unadvertised. The community 
does not hear of it. Men defrauded in gaming establish- 
ments are not fools enough to tell of it. Once in a while, 
however, there is an exposure, as when in Boston the 
police swooped upon a gaming establishment and found 
in it the representatives of all classes of citizens, from the 
first merchants on State street to the low Ann street 
gambler ; as when Bullock, the cashier of the Central 
Railroad of Georgia, was found to have stolen one hun- 
dred and three thousand dollars for the purpose of carry- 
ing on gaming practices; as when a young man in one 
of the savings' banks of Brooklyn, many years ago, was 
found to have stolen forty thousand dollars to carry on 
gaming practices; as when a man connected with a Wall 
street insurance company was found to have stolen one 
hundred and eighty thousand dollars to carry on his gam- 
ing practices. But that is exceptional. Generally the 
money leaks silently from the merchant's till into the 
gamester's wallet. I believe that one of the main pipes 
leading to this sewer of iniquity is the excitement of busi- 
ness life. It is not a significant fact that the majority of 
the day gambling-houses in New York are in proximity 
to Wall street? Men go into the excitement of stock 



156 



A OABT-ROPB INIQUITY. 



gambling, and from that they plunge into the gam- 
bling-houses, as, when men are intoxicated, they go into 
i liquor saloon to get more drink. The howling, scream- 
ing, stampings Bedlamitish crew in the " Gold Koom" 
dr#p into the gaming-houses to keep up their frenzy. The 
agitation that is witnessed in the stock market when the 
chair announces the word " North-western," or " Fort 
Wayne," or " Rock Island," or " New York Central," 
and the rat! tat! tat! of the auctioneer's hammer, and the 
excitement of making "corners," and getting up "pools," 
and "carrying stock," and a "break" from eighty to 
seventy, and the excitement of rushing about in curb- 
stone brokerage, and the sudden cries of "Buyer three! " 
"Buyer ten!" "Take 'em!" "How many?" and the 
making or losing of ten thousand dollars by one opera- 
tion, unfits a man to go home, and so he goes up the 
flight of stairs, amid business offices, to the darkly-cur- 
tained, wooden- shuttered room, gaily furnished inside, 
and takes his place at the roulette or the faro table. But 
I cannot tell all the process by which men get into this 
evil. One man came to our city of New York. He was 
a Western merchant. He went into a gaming-house on 
Park-place. Before morning he had lost all his money 
aave one dollar, and he moved around about with that 
dollar in his hand, and after awhile, caught still more 
powerfully under the infernal infatuation, he came up and 
put down the dollar and cried out until they heard him 
through the saloon: "One thousand miles from home* 
and my last dollar on the gaming table." 

Says some young man here this morning: " That cart- 
/ope has never been wound around my soul." My 
brother, have not some threads of that cart-rope been 
twisted until after awhile they may become strong enough 
to bind you for ever! 



▲ OAKT-BOPB INIQUITY. 



157 



I arraign before God the gift enterprises of our cities, 
which have a tendency to make this a nation of gam- 
blers. Whatever you get, young man, in such a place 
as that, without giving a proper equivalent, is a robbery 
of your own soul, and a robbery of the community. 
Yet, how we are appalled to see men who have failed in 
other enterprises go into gift concerts, where the chief 
attraction is not music, but the prizes distributed among 
the audience; or to sell books where the chief attraction 
is not the book, but the package that goes with the book. 
Tobacco dealers advertise that on a certain day they will 
put money into their papers, so that the purchaser of 
this tobacco in Cincinnati or New York may unexpect- 
edly come upon a magnificent gratuity. Boys hawking 
through the cars packages containing nobody knows 
what, until you open them and find they contain noth- 
ing. Christian men with pictures on their wall gotten 
in a lottery, and the brain of community taxed to find 
out some new way of getting things without paying for 
them. O, young men, these are the threads that make 
the cart rope, and when a young man consents to these 
practices, he is being bound hand and foot by a habit 
which has already destroyed " a great multitude that no 
man can number." Sometimes these gift enterprises 
are carried on in the name of charity; and you remem- 
' ber at the close of the late war how many gift enter- 
prises were on foot, the proceeds to go to the orphans 
and the widows of the soldiers and sailors. What did 
the men who had charge of those gift enterprises care 
for the orphans and the widows? Why, they would have 
allowed them to freeze to death upon their steps. I have 
no faith in a charity which, for the sake of relieving 
present suffering, opens a gaping jaw that has swallowed 
down so much of the virtue and good principle of com- 



168 



A CART-ROPE INIQUITY. 



munity. Young man, have nothing to do witn these 
things. They only sharpen your appetite for games of 
chance. Do one of two things: be honest or die. 

I have accomplished my object if I put the men in my 
audience on the look out. It is a great deal easier to 
fall than it is to get up again. The trouble is that when 
men begin to go astray from the path of duty, they are 
apt to say, " There's no use of my trying to get back. 
Fve sacrificed my respectability, I can't return;" and 
they go on until they are utterly destroyed. I tell you, 
my friends, that God this moment, by His Holy Spirit, 
can change your entire nature, so that you will go out 
of this Tabernacle a far different man from what you 
were when you came in. Your great want — what is it? 
More salary? Higher social position ? No; no. I will 
tell you the great want of every man in this house, if 
he has not already obtained it. It is the grace of God. 
Are there any here who have fallen victims to the sin 
that I have been reprehending? You are in a prison. 
You rush against the wall of this prison, and try to get 
out, and you fail; and you turn around and dash against 
the other wall until there is blood on the grates, and 
blood on your squI. You will never get out in this way. 
There is only one way of getting out. There is a key 
that can unlock that prison-house. It is the key of the 
house of David. It is the key that Christ wears at His 
girdle. If you will allow Him this morning to put that 
key to the lock, the bolt will shoot back, and the door 
will swing open, and you will be a free man in Christ 
Jesus. O, prodigal, what a business this is for you, 
feeding swine, when your father stands in the front door, 
straining his eyesight to catch the first glimpse of your 
return ; and the calf is as fat as it will be, and the harps 
of heaven are all strung, and the feet free. There are 



A 0 ART-ROPE INIQUITY. 



159 



converted gamblers in heaven. The light of eternity 
flashed upon the green baize of their billiard-saloon. In 
the laver of God's forgiveness they washed off all their 
sin. They quit trying for earthly stakes. They tried 
for heaven and won it. There stretches a hand from 
heaven toward the head of the worst man in all this 
audience. It is a hand, not clenched as if to smite, but 
outspread as if to drop a benediction. Other seas have 
a shore and may be fathomed, but the sea of God's love 
— eternity, has no plummet to strike the bottom, and 
immensity no iron-bound shore to confine it. Its tides 
are lifted by the heart of infinite compassion. Its waves 
are the hosannahs of the redeemed. The argosies that 
sail on it drop anchor at last amid the thundering salvo 
of eternal victory. But alas for that man who sits down 
to the final game of life and puts his immortal soul on 
the ace, while the angels of God keep the tally-board ; 
and after the kings and queens, and knaves, and spades, 
are " shuffled " and "cut," and the game is ended, hov- 
ering and impending worlds discover that he has lost it, 
the faro-bank of eternal darkness clutching down into 
its waiiet all the blood-stained wagers. 



100 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



OHAPTEK XL 

THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 
She that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth.— I. Tim r: • 

It is a strong way of putting the truth, that a woman 
who seeks in worldly advantage her chief enjoyment, 
will come to disappointment and death. 

My friends, you all want to be happy. You have had 
a great many recipes by which it is proposed to give you 
satisfaction — solid satisfaction. At times you feel a 
thorough unrest. You know as well as older people 
what it is to be depressed. As dark shadows sometimes 
fall upon the geography of the school-girl as on the page 
of the spectacled philosopher. I have seen as cloudy 
days in May as in November. There are no deeper sighs 
breathed by the grandmother than by the granddaughter. 
I correct the popular impression that people are happier 
in childhood and youth than they ever will be again. If 
we live aright, the older we are the happier. The happiest 
woman that I ever knew was a Christian octogenarian ; 
her hair white as white could be; the sunlight of heaven 
late in the afternoon gilding the peaks of snow. I have 
to say to a great many of the young people of this church 
that the most miserable time you are ever to have is 
just now. As you advance in life, as you come out into 
the world and have your head and heart all full of good, 
honest, practical, Christian work, then you will know 
whvx \t is to begin to be happy. There are those who 
would have us believe that life is chasing thistle-down 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



161 



and grasping bubbles. We have not found it so. To 
many of us it has been discovering diamonds largej* than 
the Kohinoor, and I think that our joy will continue to 
increase until nothing short of the everlasting jubilee of 
heaven will be able to express it. 

Horatio Greenough, at the close of the hardest life a 
man ever lives — the life of an American artist — wrote: 
"I don't want to leave this world until I give some sign 
that, born by the grace of God in this land, I have found 
life to be a very cheerful thing, and not the dark and 
bitter thing with which my early prospects were 
clouded." 

Albert Barnes, the good Christian, known the world 
over, stood in his pulpit in Philadelphia, at seventy or 
eighty years of age, and said: "This world is so very 
attractive to me, I am very sorry I shall have to leave it." 

I know that Solomon said some very dolorous things 
about this world, and three times declared: "Yanity of 
vanities, all is vanity." I suppose it was a reference to 
those times in his career when his seven hundred wives 
almost pestered the life out of him! But I would rather 
turn to the description he has given of religion, when he 
says in another place: "Her ways are ways of pleasant- 
ness, and all her paths are peace." It is reasonable 
to expect it will be so. The longer the fruit hangs on 
the tree, the riper and more mellow it ought to gro^r. 
You plant one grain of corn, and it will send up a stalk 
svith two ears, each having nine hundred and fifty grains, 
30 that one grain planted will produce nineteen hundred 
grains. And ought not the implantation of a grain ot 
Christian principle in a youthful soul develop into a large 
crop of gladness on earth and to a harvest of eternal joy 
in heaven? Hear me, then, this morning, while I dis- 
course upon some of the mistakes which young people 
! 1 



THE WOMAN OF PU&ASUBE. 



make in regard to happiness, and point ont to the youn£ 
women of this church what I consider to be the sources 
of complete satisfaction. 

And, in the first place, I advise you not to build your 
happiness upon mere social position. Persons at your 
age, looking off upon life, are apt to think that if, by 
some stroke of what is called good-luck, you could arrive 
in an elevated and affluent position, a little higher than 
that in which God has called you to live, you would be 
completely happy. Infinite mistake! The palace floor 
of Ahasuerus is red with the blood of Vashti's broken 
heart. There have been no more scalding tears wept 
than those which coursed the cheeks of Josephine. If 
the sobs of unhappy womanhood in the great cities could 
break through the tapestried wall, that sob would come 
along your streets to-day like the simoon of the desert. 
Sometimes I have heard in the rustling of the robes on 
the city pavement the hiss of the adders that followed in 
the wake. You have come out from your home, and you 
have looked up at the great house, and covet a life under 
those arches, when, perhaps, at that very moment, within 
that house, there may have been the wringing of hands, 
the start of horror, and the very agony of hell. I knew 
such an one. Her father's house was plain, most of the 
people who came there were plain; but, by a change in 
fortune such as sometimes comes, a hand had been 
offered that led her into a brilliant sphere. All the 
neighbors congratulated her upon her grand prospects; 
but what an exchange! On her side it was a heart full 
of generous impulse and affection. On his side it was a 
soul dry and withered as the stubble of the field. On 
her side it was a father's house, where God was honored 
and the Sabbath light flooded the rooms with the very 
mirth of heaven. On his side it was a gorgeous resi- 



THE WOMAN OF PLEAS 0 BE. 163 



deuce, and the coming of mighty men to be entertained 
there; but within it were revelry and godlessness. 
Hardly had the orange blossoms of the marriage feast 
lost their fragrance, than the night of discontent began 
be cast here and there its shadow. The ring on the fin - 
ger was only one link of an iron chain that was to bind 
her eternally captive. Cruelties and unkindness changed 
all those splendid trappings into a hollow mockery. The 
platters of solid silver, the caskets of pure gold, the head- 
dress of gleaming diamonds, were there; but no God, no 
peace, no kind words, no Christian sympathy. The festive 
music that broke on the captive's ear turned out to be a 
dirge, and the wreath in the plush was a reptile coil, and 
the upholstery that swayed in the wind was the wing of 
a destroying angel, and the bead-drops on the pitcher 
were the sweat of everlasting despair. O, how many 
rivalries and unhappinesses among those who seek in 
social life their chief happiness ! It matters not how fine 
you have things; there are other people who have it 
finer. Taking out your watch to tell the hour of day, 
some one will correct your time-piece by pulling out & 
watch more richly chased and jeweled. Kide in a car 
riage that cost you eight hundred dollars, and before you 
get around the park you will meet with one that cost two 
thousand dollars. Have on your wall a picture by Cop- 
ley, and before night you will hear of some one who has 
a picture fresh from the studio of Church or Bierstadt. 
All that this world can do for you in ribbons, in silver, 
in gold, in Axminster plush, in Gobelin tapestry, in wide 
halls, in lordly acquaintanceship, will not give you the 
ten-thousandth part of a grain of solid satisfaction. The 
English lord, moving in the very highest sphere, woi 
one day found seated, with his chin on his hand, and hia 
elbow on the wtodow-sill, looking out, and saying: u O, 



164 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



I wish I could exchange places with that dog." Mere 
social position will never give happiness to a woman's 
soul. I have walked through the halls of those who des- 
pise th6 common people; I have sat at their banquets; 
I have had their friendship ; yea, I have heard from their 
own lips the story of their disquietude; and I tell the 
young women of this church that they who build on 
mere social position their soul's immortal happiness, are 
building on the sand. 

1 go further, and advise you not to depend for enjoy- 
ment upon mere personal attractions. It would be 
sheer hypocrisy, because we may not have it ourselves, 
to despise, or affect to despise, beauty in others. When 
God gives it, He gives it as a blessing and as a means of 
usefulness. David and his army were coming down from 
the mountains to destroy Nabal and his flocks and vine- 
yards. The beautiful Abigail, the wife of Nabal, went 
out to arrest him when he came down from the moun- 
tains, and she succeeded. Coming to the foot of the hill, 
she knelt. David with his army of sworn men came 
down over the cliffs, and when he saw her kneeling at 
the foot of the hill, he cried: "Halt!" to his men, and 
the caves echoed it: "Halt! halt I" That one beautiful 
woman kneeling at the foot of the cliff had arrested all 
those armed troops. A dew-drop dashed back Niagara. 
The Bible sets before us the portraits of Sarah and 
Rebecca, and Abishag, Absalom's sister, and Job's 
daughters, and says: "They were fair to look upon." 
By out-door exercise, and by skillful arrangement of ap- 
parel, let women make themselves attractive. The sloven 
has only one mission, and that to excite our loathing and 
disgust. But alas! for those who depend upon personal 
charms for their happiness. Beauty is such a subtle 
thing, it does not seem to depend upon facial propor- 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. JfiP 

tions, or upon the sparkle of the eye, or upon the flush 
of the cheek. You sometimes find it among irregular 
features. It is the soul shining through the face that 
makes one beautiful. But alas! for those who depend 
upon mere personal charms. They will come to disap- 
pointment and to a great fret. There are so many dif- 
ferent opinions about what are personal charms; and then 
sickness, and trouble, and age, do make such ravages. 
The poorest god that a woman ever worships is her own 
face. The saddest sight in all the world is a woman who 
has built everything on good looks, when the charms 
begin to vanish. O, how they try to cover the wrinkles 
and hide the ravages of time! When Time, with iron- 
shod feet, steps on a face, the hoof-marks remain, and 
you cannot hide them. It is silly to try to hide them. 
I think the most repulsive fool in all the world is an old 
fool! 

Why, my friends, should you be ashamed to be get- 
ting old? It is a sign — it is prima facie evidence, that 
you have behaved tolerably well or you would not have 
lived to this time. The grandest thing, I think, is eter- 
nity, and that is made up of countless years. When the 
Bible would set forth the attractiveness of Jesus Christ, 
it says: "His hair was white as snow." But when the 
color goes from the cheek, and the lustre from the eye, 
and the spring from the step, and the gracefulness from 
the gait, alas! for those who have built their time and 
their eternity upon good looks. But all the passage of 
years cannot take out of one's face benignity, and kind- 
ness, and compassion, and faith. Culture your heart and 
you culture your face. The brightest glory that ever 
beamed from a woman's face is the religion of Jesus 
Christ. In the last war two hundred wounded soldiers 
came to Philadelphia one night, and came unheralded, 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



and they had to extemporize a hospital for them, and the 
Christian women of my church, and of other churches, 
went out that night to take care of the poor wounded 
fellows. That night I saw a Christian woman go through 
the wards of the hospital, her sleeves rolled up, ready for 
hard work, her hair dishevelled in the excitement of the 
hour. Her face was plain, very plain; but after the 
wounds were washed and the new bandages were put 
round the splintered limbs, and the exhausted boy fell 
off into his first pleasant sleep, she put her hand on his 
brow, and he started in his dream, and said: "O, I 
thought an angel touched me!" There may have been 
no classic elegance in the features of Mrs. Harris, who 
came into the hospital after the "Seven Days" awful fight 
before Richmond, as she sat down by a wounded drum- 
mer-boy and heard him soliloquize: "A ball through 
my body, and my poor mother will never again see hei 
boy. What a pity it is I" And she leaned over him and 
said: "Shall I be your mother, and comfort you?" And 
he looked up and said: "Yes, I'll try to think she's 
here. Please to write a long letter to her, and tell her 
all about it, and send her a lock of my hair and comfort 
her. But I would like to have you tell her how much I 
suffered — yes, I would like you to do that, for she would 
feel so for me. Hold my hand while I die." There may 
have been no classic elegance in her features, but all the 
hospitals of Harrison's Landing and Fortress Monroe 
would have agreed that she was beautiful; and if any 
rough man in all that ward had insulted her, some 
wounded soldier would have leaped from his couch, on 
his best foot, and struck him dead with a crutch. 

Again: I advise you not to depend for happinw 
upon the flatteries of men. It is a poor compliment te 
your sex that so many men feel obliged in your presence 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



167 



to offer unmeaning compliments. Men capable of ele- 
gant and elaborate conversation elsewhere sometimes feel 
called upon at the door of the drawing-room to drop their 
common sense and to dole out sickening flatteries. They 
say things about your dress, and about your appearance, 
that you know, and they know, are false. They say you 
are an angel. You know you are not. Determined to 
tell the truth in office, and store, and shop, they consider 
it honorable to lie to a woman. The same thing that 
they told you on this side of the drawing-room, three 
minutes ago they said to some on the other side of the 
drawing-room. O, let no one trample on your self-res- 
pect. The meanest thing on which a woman can build 
her happiness is the flatteries of men. 

Again: I charge you not to depend for happiness 
upon the discipleship of fashion. Some men are just as 
proud of being out of the fashion as others are of being 
in it. I have seen men as vain of their old fashioned 
coat, and their eccentric hat, as your brainless fop is proud 
of his dangling fooleries. Fashion sometimes makes a 
reasonable demand of us, and then we ought to yield to it. 
The daisies of the field have their fashion of color and 
leaf; the honeysuckles have their fashion of ear-drop; 
and the snowflakes flung out of the winter heavens have 
their fashion of exquisiteness. After the summer shower 
the sky weds the earth with ring of rainbow. And I do 
not think we have a right to despise all the elegancies and 
fashions of this world, especially if they make reasonable 
demands upon us; but the discipleship and worship of fash, 
ion is death to the body, and death to the soul. I am glad 
the world is improving. Look at the fashion plates of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and you will find 
that the world is not so extravagant and extraordinary now 
as it was then, and all the marvellous things that the 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE. 



granddaughter will do will never equal that done by tht 
grandmother. Go still further back to the Bible times, 
and you find that in those times fashion wielded a more 
terrible scepter. You have only to turn to the third 
chapter of Isaiah. 

Only think of a woman having all that on I I am glad 
that the world is getting better, and that fashion which 
has dominated in the world so ruinously in other days 
has for a little time, for a little degree at any rate, re 
laxed its energies. Oh, the danger of the discipleship oi 
fashion. All the splendors and the extravaganza of this 
world dyed into your robe and flung over your shoulder 
cannot wrap peace around your heart for a single moment 
The gayest wardrobe will utter no voice of condolence in 
the day of trouble and darkness. That woman is grand- 
ly dressed, and only she, who is wrapped in the robe of e 
Savior's righteousness. The home may be very hum- 
ble, the hat may be very plain, the frock may be very 
coarse; but the halo of heaven settles in the room when 
she wears it, and the faintest touch of the resurrection 
angel will change that garment into raiment exceeding 
white, so as no fuller on earth could whiten it. I come 
to you,- young woman, to-day, to say that this world can- 
not make you happy. I know it is a bright world, with 
glorious sunshine, and golden rivers, and fire-worked 
sunset, and bird orchestra, and the darkest cave has itfci 
crystals, and the wrathiest wave its foam-wreath, and the 
coldest midnight its flaming aurora; but God will put 
out all these lights with the blast of his own nostrils, and 
the glories of this world will perish in the final confla- 
gration. You will never be happy until you get your 
sins forgiven and allow Christ J esus to take full posses- 
sion of your soul. He will be your friend in every per- 
plexity. He will be your comfort in every trial. He 



THE WOMAN OF PLEASURE* 



will l)e your defender in every strait. I do not ask yon 
to bring, like Mary, the spices to the sepulcher of a dead 
Christ, but to bring your all to the feet of a living Jesus. 
His word is peace. His look is love. His hand is help. 
His touch is life. His smile is heaven. Oh, come, then, 
in flocks and groups! Come, like the south wind over 
banks of myrrh. Come, like the morning light tripping 
over the mountains. Wreathe all your affections for 
Chrises brow, set all your gems in Christ's coronet, j mu 
all your voices into Christ's song, and let this Sabbath 
air rustle with the wings of rejoicing angels, and the 
towers of God ring out the news of souls saved I 

"This world its fancied pearl may crav®, 

'Tis not the pearl for me ; 
Twill dim its luster in the grave 

'Twill perish in the sea. 
But there's a pearl of price untold. 
Which never can be bought with gol&{ 

Oh, that's the pearl for bbs©." 



WATERING PLACES. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE SINS OF SUMMER WATERING PLACES. 

A pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having 
five porches. In these lay a multitude of blind, halt, withered, wait- 
ing for the moving of the water. — John v : 2, 3. 

Outside of the city of Jerusalem, there was a sensi- 
tive watering-place, the popular resort for invalids. To 
this day, there is a dry basin of rock which shows that 
there must have been a pool there three hundred and 
sixty feet long, one hundred and thirty feet wide, and 
8eventy-five feet deep. This pool was surrounded by five 
piazzas, or porches, or bathing-houses, where the patients 
tarried until the time when they were to step into the 
water. So far as reinvigoration was concerned, it must 
have been a Saratoga and a Long Branch on a small scale; 
a Leamington and a Brighton combined — medical and 
therapeutic. Tradition says that at a certain season of 
the year there was an officer of the government who 
would go down to that water and pour in it some heal- 
ing quality, and after that the people would come and 
get the medication ; but I prefer the plain statement of 
Scripture, that at a certain season, an angel came down 
and stirred up or troubled the water; and then the peo- 
ple came and got the healing. That angel of God that 
stirred up the Judean watering-place had his counter- 
part in the angel of healing that, in our day, steps into 
the mineral waters of Congress, or Sharon, or Sulphur 
Springs, or into the salt sea at Cape May and Nahant, 
where multitudes who are worn out with commercial and 



WATERING PLACES. 



ITl 



professional anxieties, as well as those who are afflicted 
with rheumatic, neuralgic, and splenetic diseases, go, 
and are cured by the thousands. These Bethesdas are 
scattered all up and down our country, blessed be God I 

We are at a season of the year when railway trains are 
being laden with passengers and baggage on their way to 
the mountains, and the lakes, and the sea-shore. Mul- 
titudes of our citizens are packing their trunks for a 
restorative absence. The city heats are pursuing the 
people with torch and fear of sunstroke. The long silent 
halls of sumptuous hotels are all abuzz with excited ar- 
rivals. The crystalline surface of Winnipiseogee is shat- 
tered with the stroke of steamers laden with excursion- 
ists. The antlers' of Adirondack deer rattle under the 
shot of city sportsmen. The trout make fatal snap at 
the hook of adroit sportsmen, and toss their spotted bril- 
liance into the game basket. Soon the baton of the 
orchestral leader will tap the music-stand on the hotel 
green, and American life will put on festal array, and the 
rumbling of the tenpin alley, and the crack of the ivory 
balls on the green-baized billiard tables, and the jolting 
of the bar-room goblets, and the explosive uncorking of 
champagne bottles, and the whirl and the rustle of the 
ball-room dance, and the clattering hoofs of the race- 
courses, will attest that the season for the great Ameri- 
can watering-places is fairly inaugurated. Music! Flute, 
and drum, and cornet-a-piston, and clapping cymbals, 
will wake the echoes of the mountains. Glad I am that 
fagged-out American life, for the most part, will have an 
opportunity to rest, and that nerves racked and destroyed 
will find a Bethesda. 

I believe in watering-places. I go there sometimes. 
Let not the commercial firm begrudge the clerk, or the 
employer the journeyman, or the patient the physician, 



1?2 



WATERING- PLACES. 



or the church its pastor, a season of inoccupation. Lu- 
ther used to sport with his children; Edmund Burke 
used to caress his favorite horse; Thomas Chalmers, in 
the dark hour of the Church's disruption, played kite 
for recreation — so I was told by his own daughter — and 
the busy Christ said to the busy apostles: "Come ye 
apart awhile into the desert, and rest yourselves." And 
I have observed that they who do not know how to rest, 
do not know how to work. 

But I have to declare this truth to-day, that some of 
our fashionable watering-places are the temporal and 
eternal destruction of "a multitude that no man can num- 
ber;" and amid the congratulations of this season, and 
the prospect of the departure of many of you for the 
country, I must utter a note of warning, plain, earnest, 
and unmistakable. The first temptation that is apt to 
hover in this direction, is to leave your piety all at home. 
You will send the dog, and cat, and canary-bird to be 
well cared for somewhere else; but the temptation will 
be to leave your religion in the room with the blinds 
down and the door bolted, and then you will come back 
in the autumn to find that it is starved and suffocated, 
lying stretched on the rug, stark dead. There is no sur- 
plus of piety at the watering-places. I never knew any 
one to grow very rapidly in grace at the Catskill Moun- 
tain House, or Sharon Springs, or the Falls of Montmo- 
rency. It is generally the case that the Sabbath is more 
of a carousal than any other day, and there are Sunday 
walks, and Sunday rides, and Sunday excursions. 
Elders, and deacons, and ministers of religion, who are 
entirely consistent at home, sometimes when the Sab- 
bath dawns on them at Niagara Falls, or the White 
Mountains, take the day to themselves. If they go to 
the church, it is apt to be a sacred parade, and 



WATERING PLACES. 



173 



the discourse, instead of being a plain talk about the 
soul, is apt to be what is called a crack sermon 
— that is, some discourse picked out of the effusions of 
the year as the one most adapted to excite admiration ; 
and in those churches, from the way the ladies hold their 
fans, you know that they are not so much impressed 
with the heat as with the picturesqueness of half dis- 
closed features. Four puny souls stand in the organ loft 
and squall a tune that nobody knows, and worshippers, 
with two thousand dollars worth of diamonds on the 
right hand, drop a cent into the poor-box, and then the 
benediction is pronounced, and the farce is ended. The 
toughest thing I ever tried to do was to be good at a 
watering.place. 

The air is bewitched with the "world, the flesh, and 
devil." There are Christians who, in three or four weeks 
in such a place, have had such terrible rents made in 
their Christian robe, that they had to keep darning it 
until Christmas to get it mended! The health of a great 
many people makes an annual visit to some mineral 
spring an absolute necessity; but, my dear people, take 
your Bible along with you, and take an hour for secret 
prayer every day, though you be surrounded by guffaw 
and saturnalia. Keep holy the Sabbath, though they 
deride you as a bigoted Puritan. Stand off from John 
Morrissey's gambling hell, and those other institutions 
which propose to imitate on this side the water the in- 
iquities of Baden-Baden. Let your moral and your im- 
mortal health keep pace with your physical recuperation 
and remember that all the waters of Hathorne, and sul- 
phur and chalybeate springs cannot do you so much 
good as the mineral, healing, perrennial flood that breaks 
forth from the "Rock of Ages." This may be your last 
summer. If so, make it a fit vestibule of heaven. 



174 



WATERING PLACES. 



Another temptation, however, around nearly all our 
watering-places, is the horse-racing bminess. We all 
admire the horse; but we do not think that its beauty, 
or speed, ought to be cultured at the expense of human 
degradation. The horse-race is not of such importance 
as the human race. The Bible intimates that a man is 
better than a sheep, and I suppose he is better than a 
horse, though, like Job's stallion, his neck be clothed with 
thunder. 

Horse-races in olden times were under the ban of 
Christian people; and in our day the same institution 
has come up under fictitious names. And it is called a 
"Summer Meeting," almost suggestive of positive relig- 
ious exercises. And it is called an "Agricultural Fair," 
suggestive of everything that is improving in the art of 
farming. But under these deceptive titles are the same 
cheating, and the same betting, and the same drunken- 
ness, and the same vagabondage, and the same abomina- 
tions that were to be found under the old horse-racing 
system. I never knew a man yet who could give him- 
self to the pleasures of the turf for a long reach of time 
and not be battered in morals. They hook up their 
spanking team, and put on their sporting cap, and light 
their cigar, and take the reins, and dash down the road 
to perdition! The great day at Saratoga and Long 
Branch, and Cape May, and nearly all the other water- 
ing-places, is the day of the races. The hotels are 
thronged, every kind of equipage is taken up at an 
almost fabulous price; and there are many respectable 
people mingling with jockies and gamblers, and liber- 
tines, and foul-mouthed men and flashy women. The 
bar- tender stirs up the brandy smash. The bets run 
high. The greenhorns, supposing all is fair, put in their 
money, soon enough to lose it Three weeVa before 



WATERING PLACES. 



1T5 



the race takes place the struggle is decided, and the men 
in the secret know on which steed to bet their money. 
The two men on the horses riding around, long before 
arranged who shall beat. Leaning from the stand or 
from the carriage, are men and women so absorbed in 
the struggle of bone and muscle, and mettle, that they 
make a grand harvest for the pickpockets who carry off 
the pocket-books and portmonnaies. Men looking on see 
only two horses with two riders flying around the ring; 
but there is many a man on that stand whose honor, and 
domestic happiness, and fortune — white mane, white 
foot, white flank — are in the ring, racing with in- 
ebriety, and with fraud, and with profanity, and with 
ruin — black neck, black foot, black flank. Neck and 
neck, they go in that moral Epsom. White horse of 
honor; black horse of ruin. Death says: "I will bet 
on the black horse.' y Spectator says: "I will bet on the 
white horse." The white horse of honor a little way 
ahead. The black horse of ruin, Satan mounted, all the 
time gaining on him. Spectator breathless. Put on the 
lash. Dig in the spurs. There! They are past the 
stand. Sure. Just as I expected it. The black horse 
of ruin has won the race, and all the galleries of dark- 
ness "huzza! huzza!" and the devils come in to pick up 
their wagers. Ah, my friends, have nothing to do with 
horse-racing dissipations this summer. Long ago the Eng- 
lish government got through looking to the turf for the 
dragoon and light cavalry horse. They found the turf de- 
preciates the stock; and it is yet worse for men. Thomas 
Hughes, the member of Parliament, and the author 
known all the world over, hearing that a new turf enter- 
prise was being started in this country, wrote a letter in 
which he said: "Heaven help you, then; for of all the 
cankers of our old civilisation, there is nothing in this 



176 



WATERING PLACES. 



country approaching in unblushing meanness, in rascality 
holding its head high, to this belauded institution of the 
British turf." Another famous sportsman writes: "How 
many fine domains have been shared among these hosts 
of rapacious sharks during the last two hundred years; 
and unless the system be altered, how many more are 
doomed to fall into the same gulf!" The Duke of Ham- 
ilton, through his horse-racing proclivities, in three 
years got through his entire fortune of £70,000; and I 
will say that some of you are being undermined by it. 
With the bull-fights of Spain and the bear-baitings of 
the pit, may the Lord Grod annihilate the infamous and 
accursed horse-racing of England and America. 

I go further and speak of another temptation that 
hovers over the watering place; and this is the temptation 
to sacrifice physical strength. The modern Bethesda, 
just like this Bethesda of the text, was intended to re- 
cuperate the physical health; and yet how many come 
from the watering-places, their health absolutely de- 
stroyed. 

New York and Brooklyn idiots, boasting of having 
imbibed twenty glasses of congress water before break- 
fast. Families accustomed to going to bed at ten o'clock 
at night, gossiping until one or two o'clock in the morn- 
ing. Dyspeptics, usually very cautious about their 
health, mingling ice-creams, and lemons, and lobster- 
salads, and cocoanuts until the gastric juices lift up all 
their voices of lamentation and protest. Delicate women 
and brainless young men chassezing themselves into 
vertigo and catalepsy. Thousands of men and women 
coming back from our watering-places in the autumn 
with the foundations laid for ailments that will last them 
all their life long. You know as well as I do that this 
is the simple truth. In the summer, you say to your 



WATERING PLACES. 



177 



good health: "Good-by; I am going to have a good time 
for a little while; I will be very glad to see you again in 
the autumn?*^ Then in the autumn, when you are hard 
at work in your office, or store, or shop, or counting- 
room, Good Health will come in and say: "Good-by; I 
am going." You say: "Where are you going ?" "O!" 
says Good Health, "I am going to take a vacation." It 
is a poor rule that will not work both ways, and your 
good health will leave you choleric, and splenetic, and 
exhausted. You coquetted with your good health in the 
summer-time, and your good health is coquetting with 
you in the winter- time. A fragment of Paul's charge 
to the jailer would be an appropriate inscription for the 
hotel register in every watering-place: "Do thyself no 
harm." 

Another temptation hovering around the watering- 
place is to the formation of hasty and- life-long alliances. 
The watering-places are responsible for more of the do- 
mestic infelicities of this country than all other things 
combined. Society is so artificial there that no sure 
judgment of character can be formed. They who form 
companionships amid such circumstances, go into a lot- 
tery where there are twenty blanks to one prize. In the 
severe tug of life you want more than glitter and splash. 
Life is not a ball-room, where the music decides the step, 
and bow, and prance, and graceful swing of long trail 
can make up for strong common sense. You might as 
well go among the gaily-painted yachts of a summer 
regatta to find war vessels, as to go among the light 
spray of the summer watering-place to find charactei 
that can stand the test of the great struggle of human 
life. Ah, in the battle of life you want a stronger weapon 
than a lace fan or a croquet mallet! The load of life is 
so heavy that in order to draw it you want a team 
12 



178 



WATEEING PLACES. 



stronger than one made up of a masculine grasshopper 
and a feminine butterfly. If there is any man in the 
community that excites my contempt, and that ought to 
excite the contempt of every man and woman, it is the 
soft-handed, soft-headed fop, who, perfumed until the 
air is actually sick, spends his summer in taking killing 
attitudes, and waving sentimental adieus, and talking 
infinitesimal nothings, and finding his heaven in the set 
of a lavender kid-glove. Boots as tight as an inquisition. 
Two hours of consummate skill exhibited in the tie of a 
flaming cravat. His conversation made up of "Ahs!" 
and "Ohs ! " and ' 'He-he s ! " It would take five hundred 
of them stewed down to make a teaspoonful of calf s- 
foot jelly. There is only one counterpart to such a man 
as that, and that is the frothy young woman at the water- 
ing-place ; her conversation made up of French moon- 
shine ; what she has on her head only equalled by what 
she has on her back ; useless ever since she was born, and 
to be useless until she is dead ; and what they will do 
with her in the next world I do not know, except to set 
her up on the banks of the Eiver of Life, for eternity, to 
look sweet ! God intends us to admire music, and fair 
faces and graceful step ; but amid the heartlessness, and 
the inflation and the fantastic influences of our modern 
watering-places, beware how you make life-long cove- 
nants. 

Another temptation that will hover over the watering- 
place is that to baneful literature. Almost every one 
starting off for the summer takes some reading matter. 
It is a book out of the library, or off the book- stand, or 
bought of the boy hawking books through the cars. I 
really believe there is more pestiferous trash read among 
the intelligent classes in July and August than in all the 
other ten months of the year. Men and women who at 



WATEKING PLACES. 



179 



home would not be satisfied with a book that was not 
really sensible, I found sitting on hotel piazza, or under 
the trees, reading books, the index of which would make 
them blush if they knew that you knew what the book 
was. "O," they say, "you must have intellectual recrea- 
tion." Yes. There is no need that you take along into 
a watering-place, "Hamilton's Metaphysics," or some 
thunderous discourse on the eternal decrees, or "Fara- 
day's Philosophy." There are many easy books that are 
good. You might as well say : "I propose now to give 
a little rest to my digestive organs, and instead of eat- 
ing heavy meat and vegetables, I will, for a little while, 
take lighter food— a little strychnine and a few grains of 
ratsbane." Literary poison in August is as bad as liter- 
ary poison in December. Mark that. Do not let the 
frogs and the lice of a corrupt printing-press jump and 
crawl into your Saratoga trunk or White Mountain va- 
lise. Would it not be an awful thing for you to be struck 
with lightning some day when you had in your hand one 
of these paper-covered romances — the hero a Parisian 
roue, the heroine an unprincipled flirt — chapters in the 
book that you would not read to your children at the 
rate of a hundred dollars a line. Throw out all that stuff 
from your summer baggage. Are there not good books 
that are easy to read — books of entertaining travel; 
books of congenial history; books of pure fun; books of 
poetry, ringing with merry canto; books of fine engrav- 
ing; books that will rest the mind as well as purify the 
heart and elevate the whole life? My hearers, there will 
not be an hour between this and the day of your death 
when you can afford to read a book lacking in moral 
principle. 

Another temptation hovering all around our watering- 
places, is to intoxicating beverage. I am told that it i> 



180 



WATERING PLACES. 



becoming more and more fashionable for women to 
drink; and it is not very long ago that a lady of great 
respectability, in this city, having taken two glasses of 
wine away from home, became violent, and her friends, 
ashamed, forsook her, and she was carried to a police 
station, and afterward to her disgraced home. I care 
not how well a woman may dress, if she has taken enough 
of wine to flush her cheek and put a glassiness on her 
eye, she is intoxicated. She may be handed into a 2500 
dollar carriage, and have diamonds enough to confound 
the Tiffany's — she is intoxicated. She may be a gradu- 
ate of Packer Institute, and the daughter of some man 
in danger of being nominated for the Presidency — she 
is drunk. ^ You may have a larger vocabulary than 1 
have, and you may say in regard to her that she is "con- 
vivial," or she is "wherry," or she is "festive," or she is 
•'exhilarated;" but you cannot, with all your garlands of 
verbiage, cover up the plain tact that it is an old-fash- 
ioned case of drunk. Now the watering-places are full 
of temptations to men and women to tipple. At die 
close of the ten-pin or billiard game, they tippla At 
the close of the cotillion, they tipple. Seated on the 
piazza cooling themselves off, they tipple. The tinged 
glasses come around with bright straws, and they tipple. 
First, they take " light wines" as they call them; but 
'♦Jight wines," are heavy enough to debase the appetite. 
There is not a very long road between champagne at five 
dollars a bottle and whisky at five cents a glass. 4 Satan 
has three or four grades down which he takes men tc 
destruction. One man he takes up, and through one 
spree pitches him into eternal darkness. That is a rare 
case. ^ Very seldom, indeed, can you find a man who 
will be such a fool as that. Satan will take another man 
to a grade, to a descent at an ahgle about like the Penn- 



V 



WA.TERING PLACES. 181 

sylvania coal-shute, or the Mount Washington rail track, 
and shove him off. But that is very rare. When a man 
goes down to destruction, Satan brings him to a plane. 
It is almost a level. The depression is so slight that 
you can hardly see it. The man does not actually know 
that he is on the down grade, and it tips only a little 
toward darkness — just a little. And the first mile it is 
claret, and the second mile it is sherry, and the third 
mile it is punch, and the fourth mile it is ale, and the 
fifth mile it is porter, and the sixth mile it is brandy, 
and then it gets steeper, and steeper, and steeper, and 
the man gets frightened, and says: "O, let me get off.* 
"No," says the conductor, "this is an express-train, and 
it don't stop until it gets to the Grand Central depot of 
Smashupton!" Ah, "Look not thou upon the wine when 
it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it 
moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent* 
and stingeth like an adder." And if any young man of 
my congregation should get astray this summer in this 
direction, it will not be because I have not given him 
fair warning. 

My friends, whether you tarry at home — which will be 
quite as safe and perhaps quite as comfortable — or go 
into the country, arm yourself against temptation. The 
grace of God is the only safe shelter, whether in town or 
country. There are watering-places accessible to all of 
us. You cannot open a book of the Bible without find- 
ing out some such watering-place. Fountains open for 
sin and uncleanness. Wells of salvation. Streams from 
Lebanon. A flood struck out of the rock by Moses. 
Fountains in the wilderness discovered by Hagar. Water 
to drink and water to bathe in. The river of God which 
is full of water. Water of which if a man drink, he 
shall never thirst. Wells of water in the Yalley of Baca. 



WATERING PLACES. 



Living fountains of water. A pure river of water as 
clear as crystal from under the throne of God. These 
are watering-places accessible to all of us. We do not 
have a laborious packing up before we start — only the 
throwing away of our transgressions. No expensive 
hotel bills to pay; it is "without money and without 
price." No long and dusty travel before we get there; 
it is only one step away. In California, in five minutes 
I walked around and saw ten fountains all bubbling up, 
and they were all different; and in five minutes I can go 
through this Bible parterre and find you fifty bright, 
sparkling fountains bubbling up into eternal life — heal- 
ing and therapeutic. A chemist will go to one of these 
summer watering-places and take the water, and analyze 
it, and tell you that it contains so much of iron, and so 
much of soda, and so much of lime, and so much of 
magnesia. I come to this Gospel well, this living foun- 
tain, and analyze the water; and I find that its ingredi- 
ents are peace, pardon, forgiveness, hope, comfort, life, 
heaven. "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye" to this 
watering-place. Crowd around this Bethesda this morn- 
ing. O, you sick, you lame, you troubled, you dying — 
crowd around this Bethesda. Step in it, oh, step in itl 
The angel of the covenant this morning stirs the water! 
Why do you not step in it? Some of you are too weak 
to take a step in that direction. Then we take you up 
in the arms of our closing prayer, and plunge you clean 
under the wave, hoping that the cure may be as sudden 
and as radical as with Captain Naaman, who, blotched 
and carbuncled, stepped into the Jordan, and after the 
seventh dive came up, his skin roseate complexioned as 
the flesh of a little child. 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL BIS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL BIN. 

He beheld the city, and wept over it — Luke xix ; 41. 

The citizens of Old Jerusalem are in the tip top of 
excitement. A country man has been doing some won- 
derful works and asserting very high authority. The 
police court has issued papers for his arrest, for this 
thing must be stopped, as the very government is im- 
perilled. News comes that last night this stranger 
arrived at a suburban village, and that he is stopping at 
the house of a man whom he had resuscitated after four 
days' sepulture. Well, the people rush out into the 
streets, some with the idea of helping in the arrest of 
this stranger when he arrives, and others expecting that 
on the morrow he will come into the town, and by some 
supernatural force oust the municipal and royal authori- 
ties and take everything in his own hands. They pour 
out of the city gates until the procession reaches to the 
village. They come all around about the house where the 
stranger is stopping, and peer into the doors and windows 
that they may get one glimpse of him or hear the hum of 
his voice. The police dare not make the arrest because he 
has, somehow, won the affections of all the people. O, 
it is a lively night in Bethany. The heretofore quiet 
village is filled with uproar, and outcry, and loud discus- 
sion about the strange acting countryman. I do not 
think there was any sleep in that house that night where 
the stranger was stopping. Although he came in weary 
he finds no rest, though for once in his lifetime he had 



184 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



a pillow. But the morning dawns, the olive gardens 
wave in the light, and all along the road, reaching over 
the top of Olivet toward Jerusalem, there is a vast sway- 
ing crowd of wondering people. The excitement around 
the door of the cottage is wild, as the stranger steps out 
beside an unbroken colt that had never been mounted, 
and after his friends had strewn their garments on the 
beast for a saddle, the Saviour mounts it, and the popu- 
lace, excited, and shouting, and feverish, push on back 
toward Jerusalem. Let none jeer now or scoff at this 
rider, or the populace will trample him under foot in an 
instant. There is one long shout of two miles, and as 
far as the eye can reach you see wavings of demonstra- 
tions and approval. There was something in the rider's 
visage, something in his majestic brow, something in 
his princely behavior, that stirs up the enthusiasm of 
the people. They run up against the beast and try to 
pull off into their arms, and carry on their shoulders, the 
illustrious stranger. The populace are so excited that 
they hardly know what to do with themselves, and some 
rush up to the roadside trees and wrench off branches 
and throw them in his way; and others doff their gar- 
ments, what though they be new and costly, and spread 
them for a carpet for the conqueror to' ride over. " Ho- 
sanna! " cry the people at the foot of the hill. "Ho- 
sannal" cry the people all up and down the mountain. 
The procession has now come to the brow of Olivet 
Magnificent prospect reaching out in every direction — 
vineyards, olive groves, jutting rock, silvery Siloam, and 
above all, rising on its throne of hills, the most highly 
honored city of all the earth, Jerusalem. Christ there, 
in the midst of the procession, looks off, and sees here 
fortressed gates, and yonder the circling wall, and here 
the towers blazing in the sun, Phasselus and Mariamne, 




JESUS FEEDING THE MULTITUDE AT BETHSAIDA. 

"For they were about five thousand men. * * Then he took the 
five loaves, and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed 
them. And they did eat, and were all filled." — Luke 9. 14. 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIM. 



185 



Yonder is Hippicus, the king's castle. Looking along 
in the range of the larger branch of that olive tree you 
see the mansions of the merchant princes. Through 
this cleft in the limestone rock you see the palace of the 
richest trafficker in all the earth. He has made his 
money by selling Tyrian purple. Behold now the Tem- 
ple I Clouds of smoke lifting from the shimmering 
roof, while the building rises up beautiful, grand, ma- 
jestic, the architectural skill and glory of the earth lift- 
ing themselves there in one triumphant doxology, the 
frozen prayer of all nations. 

The crowd looked around to see exhilaration and 
transport in the face of Christ. O, no! Out from amid 
the gates, and the domes, and the palaces there arose a 
vision of that city's sin, and of that city's doom, which 
obliterated the landscape from horizon to horizon, and 
he burst into tears. " He beheld the city, and wept 
over it." 

Standing in some high tower of the beloved city of 
our residence, we might look off upon a wondrous scene 
of enterprise, and wealth, and beauty ; long streets faced 
by comfortable homes, here and there rising into afflu- 
ence, while we might find thousands of people who 
would be glad to cast palm branches in the way of him 
who comes from Bethany to J erusalem, greeting him 
with the vociferation: " Hosannal to the Son of David." 
And yet how much there is to mourn over in our cities. 
Passing along the streets to-day are a great multitude. 
Whither do they go? To church. Thank God for 
that. Listen, this morning, and you hear multitudi- 
nous voices of praise. Thank God for that. When the 
evening falls you will find Christian men and women 
knocking at hovels of poverty, and % finding no light, 
taking the matches from their pocket, and by a 



186 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



momentary glance revealing wan faces, and wasted 
hands, and ragged bed, sending in before morning, can- 
dles and vials of medicine, and Bibles and loaves of 
bread, and two or three flowers from the hot-house. 
Thank God for all that. But listen again, and you hear 
the thousand- voiced shriek of blasphemy tearing its way 
up from the depths of the city. You see the uplifted de- 
canters emptied now, but uplifted to fight down the 
devils they have raised. Listen to that wild laugh at 
the street corner, that makes the pure shudder and say : 
" Poor thing, that's a lost soul!" Hark! to the click of 
the gambler's dice and the hysteric guffaw of him who 
has pocketed the last dollar of that young man's estate. 
This is the banquet of Bacchus. That young man has 
taken his first glass. That man has taken down three- 
fourths of his estate. This man is trembling with last 
night's debauch. This man has pawned everything save 
that old coat. This man is in delirium, sitting pale p.nd 
unaware of anything that is transpiring about him — 
quiet until after awhile he rises up with a shriek, 
enough to make the denizens of the pit clap to the door 
and put their fingers in their ears, and rattle their 
chains still louder to drown, out the horrible outcry. 
You say : " Is it not strange that there should be so 
much suffering and sin in our cities?" No, it is not 
strange. When I look abroad and see the temptations 
that are attempting to destroy men for time and eter- 
nity, I am surprised in the other direction that there are 
any true, upright, honest, Christian people left. There 
is but little hope for any man in these great cities who 
has not established in his soul, sound, thorough Chris- 
tian principle. 

First, look around you and see the temptations to 
commercial frauds. Here is a man who starts in busi- 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



187 



ness. He says: "Fm going to be honest;" but on the 
same street, on the same block, in the same business, 
are Shylocks. Those men, to get the patronage of any 
one, will break all * understandings with other merchants, 
and will sell at ruinous cost, putting their neighbors at 
great disadvantage, expecting to make up the deficit in 
something else. If an honest principle could creep into 
that man's soul, it would die of sheer loneliness ! The 
man twists about, trying to escape the penalty of the 
law, and despises God, while he is just a little anxious 
about the sheriff. The honest man looks about him and 
says: " Well, this rivalry is awful. Perhaps I am more 
scrupulous than I need be. This little bargain I am 
about to enter is a little doubtful; but then they all do 
IV And so I had a friend who started in commercial 
life, and as a book merchant, with a high resolve. He 
said: "In my store there shall be no books that I would 
not have my family read." Time passed on, and one 
day I went into his store and found some iniquitous 
books on the shelf, and I said to him: " How is it possi- 
ble that you can consent to sell such books as these V 
"Oh," he replied: " I have got over those puritanical 
notions. A man cannot do business in this day unless 
he does it in the way other people do it." To make a 
long story short, he lost his hope of heaven, and in a 
little while he lost his morality, and then he went into a 
mad-house. In other words, when a man casts off God, 
God casts him off. 

One of the mightiest temptations in commercial life, 
in all our cities, to-day, is in the fact that many professed 
Christian men are not square in their bargains. Such 
men are in Baptist, and Methodist, and Congregational 
Churches, and our own denomination is as largely rep- 
resented as any of them. Our good merchants are fore- 



188 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



most in Christian enterprises; they are patronizers of 
art, philanthropic and patriotic. God will attend to 
them in the day of His coronation. I am not speak- 
ing of them, but of those in commercial life who 
are setting a ruinous example to our young merchants. 
Go through all the stores and offices in the city, and tell 
me in how many of those stores and offices are the prin- 
ciples of Christ's religion dominant? In three- fourths 
of them? No. In half of them? No. In one- tenth 
of them? No. Decide for yourself. 

The impression is abroad, somehow, that charity can 
consecrate iniquitous gains, and that if a man give to 
God a portion of an unrighteous bargain, then the Lord 
will forgive him the rest. The secretary of a benevolent 
society came tome and said: "Mr. So-and-So has given 
a large amount of money to the missionary cause," men- 
tioning the sum. I said: " I can't believe it." He said: 
"It is so." Well, I went home, staggered and con- 
founded. I never knew the man to give to anything; 
but after awhile I found out that he had been engaged in 
the most infamous kind of an oil swindle, and then he 
proposed to compromise the matter with the Lord, say- 
ing: "Now, here is so much for Thee, Lord. Please to 
let me offl" I want to tell you that the Church of God is 
not a shop for receiving stolen goods, and that if you 
have taken anything from your fellows, you had better 
/eturn it to the men to whom it belongs. If, from the 
nature of the circumstances, that be impossible, you had 
better get your stove red hot, and when the flames are at 
their fiercest, toss in the accursed spoil. God does not 
want it. The commercial world to-day is rotten through 
and through, and many of you know better than I can 
tell you that it requires great strength of moral charac- 
ter to withstand the temptations of business dis hones- 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SENT. 



ties. Thank God, a great many of you have withstood 
the temptations, and are as pure, and upright, and 
honest as the day when you entered business. But you 
are the exceptions in the ease. God will sustain a man, 
however, amid all the excitements of business, if he will 
only put his trust in Him. In the drug-store, in Phila- 
delphia, a young man was told that he must sell blacking 
on the Lord's day. He said to the head man of the firm: 
" I can't possibly do that. I am willing to sell medi- 
cines on the Lord's day, for I think that is right and 
necessary: but I can't sell this patent blacking." He 
was discharged from the place. A Christian man hear- 
ing of it, took him into his employ, and he went on from 
one success to another, until he was known all over the 
land for his faith in God and his good works, as well as 
for his worldly success. When a man has sacrificed any 
temporal, financial good for the sake of his spiritual in- 
terests, the Lord is on his side, and one with God is a 
majority. 

Again: Look around you and see the pressure of 
political life. How many are going down under this 
influence. There is not one man out of a thousand that 
can stand political life in our cities. Once in awhile a 
man comes and says: "Now I love my city and my 
country, and, in the strength of God, I am going in as a 
sort of missionary to reform politics." The Lord is on 
his side. He comes out as pure as when he went in, and, 
with such an idea, I believe he will be sustained; but he 
is the exception. When such an upright, pure man 
does step into politics, the first thing, the newspapers 
take the job of blackening him all over, and they review 
all his past life, and distort everything that he has done, 
until, from thinking himself a highly respectable citizen, 
he begins to contemplate what a mercy it is that he has 



190 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



been so long out of gaol. The most hopeless, God-for- 
saken people in all our cities are those who, not in a 
missionary spirit, but with the idea of sordid gain, have 
gone into political life. I pray for the prisoners in gaol, 
and think they may be converted to God, but I never 
have any faith to pray for an old politician. 

Then look around and see the allurements to an im- 
pure life. Bad books, unknown to father and mother, 
vile as the lice of Egypt, creeping into some of the best 
of families of the community; and boys read them 
while the teacher is looking the other way, or at recess, 
or on the corner of the street when the groups are gath- 
ered. These books are read late at night Satan finds 
them a smooth plank on which he can slide down into 
perdition some of your sons and daughters. Reading 
bad books — one never gets over it. The books may be 
burned, but there is not enough power in all the apoth- 
ecary's preparations to wash out the stain from the soul. 
Father's hands, mother's hands, sister's hands, will not 
wash it out. None but the hand of the Lord God can 
wash it out. And what is more perilous in regard to 
these temptations, we may not mention them. While 
God in this Bible, from chapter to chapter, thunders His 
denunciation against these crimes, people expect the 
pulpit and the printing-press to be silent on the subject, 
and just in proportion as people are impure are they 
fastidious on the theme. They are so full of decay and 
death they do not want their sepulchres opened. But I 
shall not be hindered by them. I shall go on in the 
name of the Lord Almighty, before whom you and I 
must at last come in judgment, and I shall pursue that 
vile sin, and thrust it with the two edged-sword of God's 
truth, though I find it sheltered under the chandeliers of 
some of your beautiful parlors. God will turn into des- 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL SIN. 



191 



traction all the unclean, and no splendors of surround- 
ing can make decent that which He has smitten. God 
will not excuse sin merely because it has costly array, 
and beautiful tapestry, and palatial residence, any more 
than He will excuse that which crawls, a blotch of sores, 
through the lowest cellar. Ever and anon, through some 
law-suit there flashes upon the people of our great cities 
what is transpiring in seemingly respectable circles. You 
call it "High life,'' you call it "Fast living," you call it 
"People's eccentricity." And while we kick off the 
sidewalk the poor wretch who has not the means to gar- 
nish his iniquity, these lords and ladies, wrapped in 
purple and fine linen, go un whipped of public justice. 
Ah, the most dreadful part of the whole thing is that 
there are persons abroad whose whole business it is to 
despoil the young. Salaried by infamous establishments, 
these cormorants of darkness, these incarnate fiends, 
hang around your hotels, and your theatres, and they 
insinuate themselves among the clerks of your stores, 
and, by adroitest art, sometimes get in the purest circles. 
Oh, what an eternity such a man as that will have! As 
the door opens to receive him, thousands of voices will 
cry out: "See here what you have done;" and the wretch 
will wrap himself with fiercer flame and leap into deeper 
darkness, and the multitudes he has destroyed will pur- 
sue him, and hurl at him the long, bitter, relentless, 
everlasting curse of their own anguish. If there be one 
cup of eternal darkness more bitter than another, they 
will have to drink it to the dregs. If, in all the ocean 
of the lost world that comes billowing up, there be one 
wave more fierce than another, it will dash over them. 
"God will wound the hairy scalp of him who goeth on 
still in his trespasses." 
I think you are persuaded there is but little chance 



THE TIDES OF MUNICIPAL 8IK. 



here in Brooklyn, or in New York, or Philadelphia, or 
Boston, for any young man without the grace of God. I 
will even go further and make it more emphatic, and say 
there is no chance for any young man who has not above 
him, and beneath him, and before him, and behind him, 
and on the right of him, and on the left of him, and 
within him, the all-protecting grace of God. My word 
of warning is to those who have recently come to the 
city; some of them entering our banking institutions, 
and some of them our stores and shops. Shelter your- 
selves in God. Do not trust yourselves an hour without 
the defences of Christ's religion. 

I stood one day at Niagara Falls, and I saw what you 
may have seen there, six rainbows bending over that tre- 
mendous plunge. I never saw anything like it before or 
since. Six beautiful rainbows arching that great cat- 
aract! And 60 over the rapids and the angry precipices 
of sin, where so many have been dashed down, God's beau- 
tiful admonitions hover, a warning arching each peril — 
six of them, fifty of them — a thousand of them. Be- 
warel beware! beware! This afternoon, young men, 
while you have time to reflect upon these things, and 
before the duties of the office and the store, and the shop 
come upon you again, look over this whole subject, and 
after the day has passed, and you hear in the nightfall 
the voices and the footsteps of the city dying from your 
ear, and it gets so silent that you can hear distinctly 
your watch under your pillow going u tick, tick!" then 
open your eyes, and look out upon the darkness, and see 
two pillars of light, one horizontal, the other perpendi- 
cular, but changing their direction until they come to- 
gether, and your enraptured vision beholds it — the gross! 



JUBBP0NS1BILITY OF CITY BULBB8. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

RESPONSIBILITY OP CITY RULERS. 
O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea.— Ezek. xxvii: $ 
This is a part of an impassioned apostrophe to the city 
of Tyre. It was a beautiful city — a majestic city. At 
the east end of the Mediterranean, it sat with one hand 
beckoning the inland trade, and with the other the com- 
merce of foreign nations. It swung a monstrous boom 
across its harbor to shut out foreign enemies, and then 
swung back that boom to let in its friends. The air of 
the desert was fragrant with the spices brought by caravans 
to her fairs, and all seas were cleft into foam by the keel 
of her laden merchantmen. Her markets were rich with 
horses, and mules, and camels from Togarmah; with 
upholstery, and ebony, and ivory from Dedan; with 
emeralds, and agate, and coral from Syria; with wine 
from Helbon; with finest needlework from Ashur and 
Chilmad. Talk about the splendid state-rooms of your 
White Star and French lines of international steamers, 
—why the benches of the state-rooms in those Tyrian 
ships were all ivory, and instead of our coarse canvas on 
the masts of the shipping, they had the finest linen, quilted 
together, and inwrought with embroideries almost mirac- 
ulous for beauty. Its columns overshadowed all nations. 
Distant empires felt its heart beat Majestic city ! "situate 
at the entry of the sea." 

But where now is the gleam of her towers, the roar of 
her chariots, the masts of her shipping? Let the fisher- 
men who dry their nets on the place where she once 



RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 



stood; let the sea that rushes upon the barrenness where 
she once challenged the admiration of all nations; let the 
barbarians who build their huts on the place where her 
palaces glittered, answer the question. Blotted out for 
ever! She forgot God, and God forgot her. And while 
our modern cities admire her glory, let them take warn- 
ing at her awful doom. 

Cain was the founder of the first city, and I suppose it 
took after him in morals. It is a long while before a city 
can get over the character of those who founded it 
Were they criminal exiles, the filth, and the prisons, and 
the debauchery are the shadows of such founders. New 
York will not for two or three hundred years escape 
from the good influences of its founders, — the pious set- 
tlers whose prayers went up from the very streets where 
now banks discount, and brokers shave, and companies 
declare dividends, and smugglers swear Custom-house 
lies; and above the roar of the drays, and the crack of 
auctioneers' mallets is heard the ascription — "We worship 
thee, O thou almighty dollar!" The church that once 
stood on Wall-street still throws its blessing over all the 
scene of traffic, and upon the ships that fold their white 
wings in the harbor. Originally men gathered in cities 
from necessity. It was to escape the incendiary's torch 
or the assassin's dagger. Only the very poor lived in 
the country, those who had nothing that could be stolen, 
or vagabonds who wanted to be near their place of busi- 
ness; but since civilization and religion have made it 
safe tor men to live almost anywhere, men congregate in 
cities because of the opportunity for rapid gain. Cities 
are not necessarily evils, as has sometimes been argued. 
They have been the birth-place of civilization. In them 
popular liberty has lifted up its voice. Witness Genoa, 
and Pisa, and Venice. The entrance of the represents- 



KESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. L\)5> 

tives of the cities in the legislatures of Europe was the 
death-blow to feudal kingdoms. Cities are the patron- 
izers of art and literature, — architecture pointing to its 
British Museum in London, its Eoyal Library in Paris, 
its Vatican in Eome. Cities hold the world's sceptre. 
Africa was Carthage, Greece was Athens, England is 
London, France is Paris, Italy is Kome, and the cluster 
of cities in which God has cast our lot will yet decide 
the destiny of the American people. 

The particular city in which God has given us a resi- 
dence is under especial advantage. I may this morning 
apostrophize it in the words of my text, and say : "0 
thou that art situate at the entry of the sea ! " Standing 
at the gates of the continent, we try to keep that which 
is worth keeping, and we try to pass on that which is of 
no use. The best pictures are in our galleries for exhi- 
bition, and foreign orators stop long enough to speak in 
our halls. The finest equipages may be seen on our 
Broadway, and making the circuit of our Central and 
Prospect Parks, — places fascinating with mosque, and 
fountains, and sculptured bridges, embowered walks, and 
menageries of wild animals, for the amusement of the 
people; while our Croton and Bidgewood aqueducts 
pour their brightness and refreshment into the hot lips 
of the thirsty cities. Thanking God this morning for 
the pleasant place in which He has cast our lot ; and at 
this season of the year when so many of the offices of the 
city are changing hands, and so many new men are com- 
ing into positions of public trust, I have thought it might 
be useful to talk a little while about the moral responsi- 
bility resting upon the office-bearers in the city — a theme 
as appropriate to those who are governed as to the gov- 
ernors. The moral characters of those who rule a city 
has much to do with the character of the city itself. Men, 



196 RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

women, and children are all interested in national politics. 
When the great Presidential election comes, every patriot 
wants to be found at the ballot box. We are all inter- 
ested in the discussion of national reconstruction, national 
finance, national debt, and we read the laws of Congress, 
and we are wondering who will sit next in the Presiden- 
tial chair. Now, that may be all very well — -is very well ; 
but it is high time that we took some of the attention 
which we have been devoting to national affairs and 
brought it to the study of municipal government. This 
it seems to me now is the chief point to be taken. Make 
the cities right, and the nation will be right. I have 
noticed that according to their opportunities there has 
really been more corruption in municipal governments 
in this country than in the State and national Legisla- 
tures. Now, is there no hope? With the mightiest 
agent in our hand, the glorious Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
shall not all our cities be reformed, and purified, and re- 
deemed? I believe the day will come. I am in full 
sympathy with those who are opposed to carrying politics 
into religion ; but our cities will never be reformed and 
purified until we carry religion into politics. I look 
over this city and I see that all our great interests are to 
be affected in the future, as they have been affected in the 
past, by the character of those who in the different de- 
partments rule over us, and I propose this morning to 
classify some of those interests. 

In the first place I remark : Commercial ethics are 
ahvays affected by the moral or immoral character of those 
who have municipal supremacy. Officials that wink 
at fraud, and that have neither censure nor arraignment 
for glittering dishonesties, always weaken the pulse 
of commercial honor. Every shop, every store, every 
bazaar, every factory in your city feels the moral charac- 



[RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 197 

ter of your City Hall. If in any city there be a dishonest 
mayoralty, or an unprincipled Common Council, or a 
Court susceptible to bribes, in that city there will be 
unlimited license for all kinds of trickery and sin ; while, 
on the other hand, if officials are faithful to their oath of 
office, if the laws are promptly executed, if there is vigi- 
lance in regard to the outbranchings of crime, there is 
the highest protection for all bargain making. A mer- 
chant may stand in his store and say: "Now I'll have 
nothing to do with city politics ; I will not soil my hands 
with the slush ;" nevertheless the most insignificant trial 
in the police court will affect that merchant directly or 
indirectly. What style of clerk issues the writ ; what 
style of constable makes the arrest ; what style of attor- 
ney issues the plea; what style of judge charges the 
jury ; what style of sheriff executes the sentence — these 
are questions that strike your counting-rooms to the 
centre. You may not throw it off. In the city of New 
York Christian merchants for a great while said : "We'll 
have nothing to do with the management of public 
affairs," and they allowed everything to go at loose ends 
until there rolled up in that city a debt of nearly 120,000,- 
000 dollars. The municipal government became a hissing 
and a by- word in the whole earth, and then the Christian 
merchants saw their folly, and they went and took posses- 
sion of the ballot boxes. I wish all commercial men to 
understand that they are not independent of the moral 
character of the men who rule over them, but must be 
thoroughly, mightily affected by them. 

So, also, of the educational interests of a city. Do you 
know that there are in this country sixty-five thousand 
common schools, and that there are over seven millions 
of pupils, and that the majority of those schools and the 
majority of those pupils are in our cities? Now, this 



198 RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

great multitude of children will be affected by the intel- 
ligence or -ignorance, the virtue or the vice, of Boards of 
Education and Boards of Control. There are cities — I 
am glad ours is not one of them — but there are cities 
where educational affairs are settled in the low caucus in 
the abandoned parts of the cities, by men full of igno- 
rance and rum. It ought not to be so ; but in many 
cities it is so. I hear the tramp of the coming genera- 
tions. What that great multitude of youth shall be for 
this world and the next will be affected very much by 
the character of your public schools. You had better 
multiply the moral and religious influences about the 
common schools rather than subtract from them. In- 
stead of driving the Bible out, you had better drive the 
Bible further in. May God defend our glorious common- 
school system, and send into rout and confusion all its 
sworn enemies ! 

I have also to say that the character of officials in a 
city affects the domestic circle. In a city where grog- 
shops have their own way, and gambling hells are not 
interfered with, and for fear of losing political influence 
officials close their eyes to festering abominations — in 
all those cities, the home interest need to make im- 
ploration. The family circles of the city must inevit- 
ably be affected by the moral character or the immoral 
character of those who rule over them. 

I will go further and say that the religious interests 
of a city are thus affected. The church to-day has to 
contend with evils that the civil law ought to smite ; and 
while I would not have the civil government in any wise 
relax its energy in the arrest and punishment of crime, 
I would have a thousand-fold more energy put forth in 
the drying un of the fountains of iniquity. The Church 
of God asks no petvirdary aid from political power ; but 




JESUS RAISING THE WIDOW'S SON FROM DEATH, AT NAIN. 

"And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, arise. And he that was 
dead sat up, and began to speak." — Luke 7. 14. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 199 



does ask that in addition to all the evils we must neces- 
sarily contend against we shall not have to fight also mu- 
nicipal negligence. 0, that in all our cities Christian people 
would rise up, and that they would put their hand on the 
helm before piratical demagogues have swamped the ship. 
Instead of giving so much time to national politics, give 
some of your attention to municipal government. 

I am glad to know that recently our city has been 
cleansed of a great deal of political vermin, and yet it is 
not all gone. I see them still crawling around your City 
Hall — the disgust of all good men. Somehow,inthe grind- 
ing of the political machine, they come on the top of the 
wheel. They electioneer hard at the polls, and they 
must have some crumbs of office or they will change 
their politics. The Democratic party would have us be- 
lieve that that kind of men belong to the Republican 
party, and the Eepublican party would have us believe 
that that kind of men belong to the Democratic party. 
They are both wrong. They belong to both. It was 
well illustrated at the last election in New York City, 
where the two political parties, rousing themselves up to 
the fact that they ought to have some great reformer, 
some large-hearted reformer, some unimpeachable re- 
former — the two political parties joined together and 
elected to the Senatorial chair — John Morrissey ! 0, I 
demand that the Christian people who have been stand- 
ing aloof from public affairs come back, and in the might 
of God try to save our cities. If things are or have been 
bad, it is because you have let them be bad. That Chris- 
tian man who merely goes to the polls and casts his vote 
does not do his duty. It is not the ballot box that de- 
cides the election, it is the political caucus ; and if at the 
primary meetings of the two political parties unfit and 
bad men are nominated, then the ballot box has nothing 



200 RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

to do save to take its choice between two thieves ! In 
our churches, by reformatory organization, in every way 
let us try to tone up the moral sentiment in these cities. 
The rulers are those whom the people choose, and depend 
upon it that in all the cities, as long as pure-hearted men 
stand aloof from politics because they despise hot parti- 
sanship, just so long in many of our cities will rum make 
the nominations, and rum control the ballot box, and rum 
inaugurate the officials. 

I take a step further this morning, and I ask that all 
those of yoi». who believe in the omnipotence of prayer, 
day by day, and every day, present your city officials 
before God for a blessing. Pray Jor your mayor. The 
chief magistrate of five hundred thousand souls is in a 
position of great responsibility. Many of the kings, and 
queens, and emperors of other days had no such domin- 
ion. With the scratch of a pen he may advance a benefi- 
cent institution or baulk an elevated steam railway 
confiscation. By appointments he may bless or curse 
every hearthstone in the city. If in the Episcopal 
churches, by the authority of the Litany, and in our non- 
Episcopate churches, we every Sabbath pray for the 
President -of the United States, why not, then, be just as 
hearty in our supplications for the chief magistrate of 
our cities-, for their guidance, for their health, for their 
present and everlasting morality? 

But go further, and pray for your Common Council. 
They hold in their hands a power splendid for good or 
terrible for evil. They have many temptations. In 
many of the cities whole Boards of Common Council- 
men have gone down in the maelstrom of political cor- 
ruption. They could not stand the power of the bribe. 
Corruption came in and sat beside them, and sat behind 
tlrcrau and sat before them. They recklessly voted away 



EESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 201 

the hard-earned moneys of the people. They were bought 
out, body, mind and soul, so that at the end of their 
term of office they had not enough of moral remains left 
to make a decent funeral. They went into office with 
the huzza of the multitude. They came out with the 
anathema of all decent people. There is not one man 
out of a hundred that can endure the temptations of the 
Common Couricilmen in our great cities. And if a man 
in that position have the courage of a Cromwell, and the 
independence of an Andrew Jackson, and the public 
spiritedness of a John Frederick Oberlin, and the piety 
of an Edward Pay son, he will have no surplus to throw 
away. Pray for these men. Every man likes to be 
prayed for. Do you know how Dr. Norman McLeod 
became the Queen's chaplain ? It was by a warm-hearted 
prayer in the Scotch kirk, in behalf of the Royal Family, 
'one Sabbath when the Queen and her son were present 
incognito. 

Yes, go further, my friends, and pray for your police. 
Their perils, and temptations, best known to themselves 
They hold the order and the peace of your city in their 
grasp. But for their intervention you would not be safe 
for an hour. They must face the storm. They must 
rush in where it seems to them almost instant death. 
They must put the hand of arrest on the armed maniac, 
and corner the murderer. They must refuse large re- 
wards for withdrawing complaints. They musr unravel 
intricate plots, and trace dark labyrinths of crime, and 
develop suspicions into certainties. They must be cool 
while others are frantic. They must be vigilant while 
others are somnolent, impersonating the very villainy 
they want to seize. In the police forces of our great 
cities are to-clay men of as thorough character as that of 
the old detective of New York, addressed to whom there 



202 EESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

came letters from London asking for help ten years after 
he was dead — letters addressed to "Jacob Hayes, High 
Constable of New York." Your police need your appre- 
ciation, your sympathy, your gratitude, and, above all, 
[your prayers. And there is no church more indebted 
to that class of men than this. "When, last year, we were 
arraigning some public iniquities, and the wrath of all 
the powers of darkness seemed to be stirred up, the police 
came in — not at our invitation, but voluntarily — and 
sixty of them sat in every service in this church, for six 
weeks, that there might be neither interruption nor 
bloodshed. We thank them. We sympathize with 
them. We pray for them. 

Yea, I want you to go further, and pray every clay for 
your prison inspectors and your jail-keejiers, — work 
awful and beneficent. Eough men, cruel men, im- 
patient men, are not fit for those places. They have 
under their care men who were once as good as you, but 
they got tripped up. Bad company, or strong drink, or 
a strange conjunction of circumstances, flung them head- 
long. Go down that prison corridor and ask them how 
they got in, and about their families, and what their 
early prospects in life were, and you will find that they 
are very much like yourself, except in this : that God 
kept you while He did not restrain them. Just one false 
step made the difference between them and you. They 
want more than prison bars, more than jail fare, more 
than handcuffs and hopplers, more than a vermin-cov- 
ered couch to reform them. Pray God, day by day, that 
the men who have these unfortunates in charge may be 
merciful, Christianly strategic, and the means of reforma- 
tion and rescue. Some years ago a city pastor in New 
York was called to the city prison to attend a funeral. 



RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 203 

A young woman had committed a crime, and was incar- 
cerated, and her mother came to visit her, and died on 
the visit. The mother, having no home, was buried from 
her daughter's prison-cell. After the service was over, 
the imprisoned daughter came up to the minister of 
Christ, and said : "Wouldn't you like to see my poor 
mother?" And while they stood at the coffin, the min- 
ister of Christ said to that imprisoned soul : "Don't you 
feel to-day, in the presence of your mother's dead body, 
as if you ought to make a vow before God that you will 
do differently and live a better life?" She stood for a 
few moments, and then the tears rolled down her cheeks, 
and she pulled from her right hand the worn-out glove 
that she had put on in honor of the obsequies, and, hav- 
ing bared her right hand, she put it upon the chill brow 
of her dead mother, and said : "By the help of God I 
swear I will do differently. God help me. " And she 
kept her vow. And years after, when she was told of 
the incident, she said : "When that minister of the Gos- 
pel said : 'God bless you and help you to keep the vow 
that you have made,' I cried out, and I said: 'You bless 
me ! Do you bless me ? Why, that's the first kind 
word I've heard in ten years ;' and it thrilled through 
my soul, and it was the means of my reformation, and 
ever since, by the grace of God, I've tried to live a 
Christian life." 0 yes, there are many amid the crimi- 
nal classes that may be reformed. Pray for the men 
who have these unfortunates in charge ; and who knows 
but that, when you are leaving this world, you may hear 
the voice of Christ dropping to your dying pillow, say- 
ing: "I was sick and in prison, and you visited me." 
Yea, I take the suggestion of the Apostle Paul, and ask 
you to pray for all who are in authority, that we may 
lead quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty. 



204 RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

My word this morning now is to all in this assembly 
and to those whom these words shall come who hold any 
public position of trust in our midst. You are God's 
representatives. God the King, and Euler, and Judge, 
sets you in His place. 0, be faithful in the discharge of 
all your duties, so that when Brooklyn is in ashes, and 
the world itself is a red scroll of flame, you may be in 
the mercy and grace of Christ rewarded for your faith- 
fulness. It was that feeling which gave such eminent 
qualifications for office to Neal Dow, Mayor of Portland, 
and to Judge McLean, of Ohio, and to Benjamin F. 
Butler, Attorney-General of New York, and to George 
Briggs, Governor of Massachusetts, and to Theodore 
Frelinghuysen, Senator of the United States, and to 
William Wilberforce, member of the British Parliament. 
You may make the rewards of eternity the emoluments 
of your office. What care you for adverse political criti- 
cism if you have God on your side ! The one, or the 
two, or the three years of your public trust will pass 
away, and all the years of your earthly service, and then 
the tribunal will be lifted, before which you and I must 
appear. May God make you so faithful now that the 
last scene shall be to you exhilaration and rapture. I 
wish this morning to exhort all good people, whether 
they are the governors or the governed, to make one 
grand effort for the salvation, the purification, the re- 
demption of Brooklyn. Do you not know that there are 
multitudes going down to ruin, temporal and eternal, 
dropping quicker than words drop from my lips ? Grog- 
shops swallow them up. Gambling hells devour them. 
Houses of shame are damning them. 0, let us toil, and 
pray, and preach, and vote until all these wrongs are 
righted. What we do we must do quickly. Soon you 
will not sit there, and I will not stand here. With our 



EESPONSIBILITY OF CITY EULEES. 205 

rulers, and on the same platform, we must at last come 
before the throne of God to answer for what we have 
done for the bettering of the condition of the five hun- 
dred thousand people in Brooklyn. Alas ! if on that day 
it be found that your hand has been idle and my pulpit 
has been silent. 0, ye who are pure, and honest, and 
Christian, go to work and help me to make this city 
pure, and honest, and Christian, 

Lest it may have been thought that I am this morning 
preaching only to what are called the better classes, my 
final word is to some dissolute soul that has strayed here 
to-day. Though you may be covered with all crimes, 
though you may be smitten with all leprosies, though 
you may have gone through the whole catalogue of 
iniquity, and may not have been in church for twenty 
years before to-day — before you leave this house you' 
may have your nature entirely reconstructed, and upon 
your brow, hot with infamous practices and besweated 
with exhausting indulgences, God will place the flashing 
coronet of a Saviour's forgiveness. "0, no!" you say, 
"if you knew who I am and where I came from this 
morning, you wouldn't say that to me. I don't believe 
the Gospel you are preaching speaks of my case." Yes 
it does, my brother. And then when you tell me that, 
I think of what St. Teresa said when reduced to utter 
destitution, having only two pieces of money left, she 
jingled the two pieces of money in her hand. and said: 
"St. Teresa and two pieces of money are nothing; but 
St, Teresa and two pieces of money and God are all 
things." And I tell you to-day that while a sin and a 
sinner are nothing, a sin and a sinner and an all-forgiv- 
ing and all-compassionate God are everything. 

Who is that that I see coming ? I know his step. I 
know his rags. Who is it f A prodigal. Come, people 



206 RESPONSIBILITY OF CITY RULERS. 

of God, let us go out and meet him. Get the best robe 
you can find in all this house. Let the angels of God 
fill their chalices and drink to his eternal rescue. 
Come, people of God, let us go out to meet him. The 
prodigal is coming home. The dead is alive again, and 
the lost is found. Hallelujah ! 

"Pleased with the news, the saints below 

In songs their tongues employ; 
Beyond the skies the tidings go, 

And Heaven is filled with joy. 

"Nor angels can their joy contain, 

But kindle with new fire; 
'The sinner lost is found/ they sing, 
And strike the sounding lyre." 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



207 



CHAPTEE XV. 

SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 

"Is the young man Absalom safe?" — II. Sam. xviii: 29. 

The heart of David, the father, was wrapped up in his 
boy Absalom. He was a splendid boy, judged by the 
rules of worldy criticism. From the crown of his head 
to the sole of his foot there was not a single blemish. 
The Bible says that he had such a luxuriant shock of 
hair, that when once a year it was shorn, what was cut 
off weighed over three pounds. But, notwithstanding 
all his brilliancy of appearance, he was a bad boy, and 
broke his father's heart. He was plotting to get the 
throne of Israel. He had marshalled an army to over- 
throw his father's government. The day of battle had 
come. The conflict was begun. David, the father, sat 
between the gates of the palace waiting for the tidings 
of the conflict. Oh, how rapidly his heart beat with 
emotion. Two great questions were to be decided : the 
safety of his boy, and the continuance of the throne of 
Israel. After awhile, a servant, standing on the top of 
the house, looks off, and he sees some one running. He 
is coming with great speed, and the 'man on the top of 
the house announces the coming of the messenger, and 
the father watches and waits, and as soon as the messen- 
ger from the field of battle comes within hailing distance 
the father cries out. Is it a question in regard to the 
establishment of his throne ? Does he say: ' 'Have the 
armies of Israel been victorious ? Am I to continue in my 



208 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



imperial authority ? Have I overthrown my enemies ?" 
Oh ! no. There is on© question that springs from his heart 
to the lip, and springs from the lip into the ear of the 
besweated and bedusted messenger flying from the bat- 
tle-field — the question/ 'Is the young man Absalom safe ?" 
When it was told to David, the King, that, though his 
armies had been victorious, his son had been slain, the 
father turned his back upon the congratulations of the 
nation, and went up the stairs of his palace, his heart 
breaking as he went, wringing his hands sometimes, and 
then again pressing them against his temples as though 
heTwould press them in, crying: "0 Absalom ! my son ! 
my son ! Would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom ! 
my son ! my son !" 

My friends, the question which David, the King, asked 
in regard to his son is the question that resounds to-day 
in the hearts of hundreds of parents. Yea, there are a 
great multitude of young men here who know that the 
question of the text is appropriate when asked in regard 
to them. They know the temptations by which they are 
surrounded ; they see so many who started life with as 
good resolutions as they have who have fallen in the 
path, and they are ready to hear me ask the question of 
my text: "Is the young man Absalom safe?" The fact 
is that this life is full of peril. He who undertakes it 
without the grace of God and a proper understanding 
of the conflict into which he is going must certainly be 
defeated. Just look off upon society to-day. Look at 
the shipwreck of men for whom fair things were prom- 
ised, and who started life with every advantage. Look 
at those who have dropped from high social position, 
and from great fortune, disgraced for time, disgraced 
for eternity. To prove that this life is an awful peril 
unless a man has the grace of God to defend him, I poiut 



SAFEGUABDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



209 



to that wreck of Friday at Ludlow street Jail, showing 
on what a desolate coast a strong craft may crash and 
part. Let there be no exhilaration over that man's fate. 
Instead of the chuckle of satisfaction, let there be in 
every Christian soul a deep sadness. The fact is, that 
there are tens of thousands of men in this country who, 
under the same pressure of temptation, would have 
fallen as low. Instead of bragging and boasting how 
you have maintained your integrity, you had better get 
down on your knees and thank God that His Almighty 
grace has kept you from the same moral catastrophe. 
There is no advice more appropriate to you and this 
whole country this morning than the advice of the Scrip- 
ture, which says : "Let him that standeth take heed 
lest he fall. " All my sympathies are for the afflicted 
family of that dead prisoner. For the last seven years 
some of them I know have endured an inquisition of 
torture. May the God of all comfort help them in this 
day when there are so few to pray for them. In the 
presence of this Christian assemblage I invoke the God 
of all compassion to have mercy upon those bereft chil- 
dren. It is hard to see our friends die, even when they 
die in Christian triumph and with all blissful surround- 
ings ; but alas ! when to the natural anguish is added the 
anguish of a moral and a lifetime shipwreck. Ah ! my 
friends, let us remember that that man made full expia- 
tion to society for his crimes against it. Let us remem- 
ber that by pangs of body that no doctor could arrest, 
and by horrors of soul which no imagination can describe, 
he fully paid the price of his iniquity. Let others do as 
tbe$r may, I will not throw one nettle or one thistle on 
that man's grave. But, my friends, no minister dx 
religion, no man who stands as I do, Sabbath morning 
and Sabbath night and Friday night, before a great 



210 SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 

multitude of young men, trying to help them and edu- 
cate them for time and eternity, tan allow that event of 
the past week to go by without drawing from it a lesson 
of the fact that life is an awful peril without the religion 
of Jesus Christ, and that "the way of the transgressor 
is hard." No stouter nature ever started out on this 
world than William M. Tweed. He conquered poverty ; 
he conquered lack of education ; he achieved an alder- 
manic chair in the metropolis of this country ; he gained 
a position in the Congress at Washington, and then he 
took his position on a financial throne of power at Albany, 
his frown making legislative assemblages tremble, while 
he divided the notoriety with James Fisk, Jr., of being 
the two great miscreants of the nineteenth century. 
Alas ! Alas ! Young man, look at the contrast — in ele- 
gant compartment of Wagner's palace-car, surrounded 
by wines and cards and obsequious attendants, going to 
the Senatorial place in Albany ; then look again at the 
plain box in the undertaker's wagon at three o'clock of 
last Friday at the door of a prison. Behold the contrast 
— the pictured and bouqueted apartments at the Delavan, 
liveried servants admitting millionaires and Senators 
who were flattered to take his hand ; then see the almost 
friendless prisoner on a plain cot, throwing out his dying 
hand to clutch that of Luke, his black attendant. Be- 
hold the wedding party at the mansion, the air bewitched 
with crowns, and stars, and harps of tuberoses and jap- 
onicas; among the wedding presents, forty complete 
sets of silver ; fifteen diamond sets, one set of diamonds 
worth $45,000; the wedding dress at the expense of 
$4,000, with trimmings that cost another $1,000 ;,two 
baskets of silverware, representing icebergs, to contain 
the ices, while Polar bears of silver lie down on the 
handles of the baskets; the banquet, the triumph of 



SAFEGUAKDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



211 



Delmonico's lifetime ; the whole scene a bewilderment 
of costliness and magnificence. And then behold the 
low-ceiling room, looking out on a dingy street, where 
poor, exhausted, forsaken, betrayed, sick William M. 
Tweed lies a dying. From how high up to how low 
down ! There were many common people in New York 
who for years were persuaded by what they saw that an 
honest and laborious life did not pay. As the carriage 
swept by containing the jewelled despoiler of public 
funds, men felt like throwing their burdens down and 
trying some other way of getting a livelihood ; but where 
is the clerk on $500 salary a year, where is the porter 
who will to-morrow sweep out the store, where is the 
scavenger of the street who would take Tweed's years of 
fraudulent prosperity if he must also take Tweed's suf- 
ferings, and Tweed's dishonor, and Tweed's death ? Ah ! 
there never was such an illustration for the young men 
of New York and Brooklyn of the fact that dishonesty 
will not pay. Take a dishonest dollar and bury it in 
the centre of the earth, and heap all the rocks of the 
mountain on the top of it ; then cover these rocks with 
all the diamonds of Golconda,and all the silver of Nevada, 
and all the gold of California and Australia, put on the 
top of these all banking and moneyed institutions, and 
they cannot keep down that one dishonest dollar. That 
one dishonest dollar in the centre of the earth will begin 
to heave and rock and upturn itself until it comes to the 
resurrection of damnation. "As a partridge sitteth on 
eggs and hatcheth them not, so riches got by fraud, a 
man shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at 
the end he shall be a fool." You tell me that in the last 
days the man of whom I speak read his Bible three times 
a day. I cast no slur on such a thing as that. It was 
beautiful, and it was appropriate. God could save that 



212 SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 

man as easily as He could save you or me. Had I bee» 
called to do so, I should have knelt by his cot in the 
prison and prayed for his soul with as much confidence 
as I would kneel by your bedside. Oh ! the Lord, long- 
suffering, merciful, and gracious ; height above all height, 
depth below all depth, and any man who cries for mercy 
shall get it. But who would want to live a life hostile 
to the best interests of society, even though in his last 
moments he could make his peace with God and enter 
heaven ? So I stand here before the young men, and I 
am going to have a plain talk with you, and I am going 
to offer you some safeguards. I shall not preach to you 
as a minister preaches to a formalistic congregation. I 
have no gown, or bands, or surplice ; but I take you by 
both hands, my dear brother, and from what I know of 
life, and from what I know of God, and from what I 
know of the promises of Divine grace, I shall solemnly 
yet cheerfully address you. God gives me a great many 
young men here Sabbath by Sabbath, and it is my great 
ambition not only to reach heaven myself, but to take 
them all along with me. And I will, I will, God help- 
ing me. 

The first safeguard of which I want to speak is a love 
of home. There are those who have no idea of the 
pleasures that concentrate around that word "home." 
Perhaps your early abode was shadowed with vice or 
poverty. Harsh words, and petulance, and scowling 
may have destroyed all the sanctity of that spot. Love, 
* kindness, and self-sacrifice, which have built their altars 
in so many abodes, were strangers in your father's house. 
God pity you, young man ; you never had a home. But 
a multitude in this audience can look back to a spot that 
they can never forget. It may have been a lowly roof, 
but you cannot think of it this morning without a dash 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



213 



of emGtion. You have seen nothing on earth that so 
stirred your soul. A stranger passing along that place 
might see nothing remarkable about it ; but oh ! how 
much it means to you. Fresco on palace wall does not 
mean so much to you as those rough-hewn rafters. Parks 
and bowers and trees on fashionable watering-place or 
country-seat do not mean so much to you as that brook 
that ran in front of the plain farm-house, and singing 
under the weeping willows. The barred gateway swunp 
open by porter in full dress, does not mean as much tc 
you as that swing-gate, your sister on one side of it, and 
you on the other ; she gone fitteen years ago into glory. 
That scene coming back to you to-day, as you swept 
backward and forward on the gate, singing the songs oi 
your childhood. But there are those here who hava 
their second dwelling-place. It is your adopted home. 
That also is sacred forever. There you established the 
first family altar. There your children were born. In 
that room flapped the wing of the death angel. Under 
that roof, when your work was done, you expect to lie 
down and die. There is only one word in all the lan- 
guage that can convey your idea of that place, and that 
word is "home." Now, let me say that I never knew 
a man who was faithful to his early and adopted home 
who was given over at the same time to any gross form 
of wickedness. If you find more enjoyment in the club- 
room, in the literary society, in the art-saloon, than you 
do in these unpretending home pleasures, you are on 
the road to ruin. Though you may be cut off from your 
early associates, and though you may be separated from 
all your kindred, young man, is there not a room some- 
where that you can call your own ? Though it be the 
fourth story of a third-class boarding house, into that 
room gather books, and pictures, and _a harp. Hang 



214 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



your mother's portrait over the mantel. Bid unholy 
mirth stand back from that threshold. Consecrate some 
spot in that room with the knee of prayer. By the 
memory of other days, a father's counsel, a mother's 
love, and a sister's confidence, call it home. 

Another safeguard for these young men is industrious 
habit. There are a great many people trying to make 
their way through the world with their wits instead of 
by honest toil. There is a young man who comes from 
the country to the city. He fails twice before he is as 
old as his father was when he first saw the spires of the 
great town. At twenty-one years of age he knows Wall 
Street from Trinity Church to East Eiver docks. He is 
seated in his room at a rent of $2,000 a year, waiting for 
the banks to declare their dividends and the stocks to 
run up. After awhile he gets impatient. He tries to 
improve his penmanship by making copy-plates of other 
merchants'" signatures ! Never mind — all is right in 
business. After awhile he has his estate. Now is the 
time for him to retire to the country, amid the flocks 
and the herds, to culture the domestic virtues. Now 
the young men who were his schoolmates in boyhood 
will come, and with their ox teams draw him logs, and 
with their hard hands will help to heave up the castle. 
That is no fancy sketch ; it is every-day life. I should 
not wonder if there were a rotten beam in that palace. 
I should not wonder if God should smite him with dire 
sicknesses, and pour into his cup a bitter draught that 
will thrill him with unbearable agony. I should not 
wonder if that man's children grew up to be to Jiim a 
disgrace, and to make his life a shame. I should not 
wonder if that man died a dishonorable death, and were 
tumbled into a dishonorable grave, and then went into 
the gnashing of teetli^ Tlie_way of the ungodly shall 



SA.FEGUAKDS OF YOUNG MEN. 215 

perish. Oh ! young man, you must have industry of 
head, cr hand, or foot, or perish. Do not have the idea 
that you can get along in the world by genius. The 
curse of this country to-day is genius — men with large 
self-conceit and nothing else. The man who proposes to 
make his living by his wits probably has not any. I 
should rather be an ox, plain, and plodding and useful, 
than to be an eagle, high-flying and good-for-nothing but 
to pick out the eyes of carcasses. Even in the Garden of 
Eden, it was not safe for Adam to be idle, so God made 
him an horticulturist ; and if the married pair had kept 
busy dressing the vines, they would not have been saun- 
tering under the trees, hankering after fruit that ruined 
them and their posterity ! Proof positive of the fact that 
when people do not attend to their business they get into 
mischief. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her 
ways and be wise ; which, having no overseer or guide, 
provideth her food in the summer and gathereth her 
meat in the harvest." Satan is a roaring lion, and you 
can never destroy him by gun or pistol or sword. The 
weapons with which you are to beat him back are ham- 
mer, and adze, and saw, and pickaxe, and yardstick, and 
the weapon of honest toil. Work, work, or die. 

Another safeguard that I want to present to these 
young men is a high ideal of life. Sometimes soldiers 
going into battle shoot into the ground instead of into 
the hearts of their enemies. They are apt to take aim 
too low, and it is very often that the captain, going into 
conflict with his men, will cry out, "Now, men, aim 
high !" The fact is that in life a great many men take 
no aim at all. The artist plans out his entire thought 
before he puts it upon canvas, before he takes up the 
crayon or the chisel. An architect thinks out the 
entire building before the workmen begin. Although 



216 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



everything may seem to be unorganized, that arch- 
itect has in his mind every Corinthian column, 
every Gothic arch, every Byzantine capital. A poet 
thinks out the entire plot of his poem before he 
begins to chime the cantos of tinkling rhythms. And 
yet there are a great many men who start the important 
structure of human life without knowing whether it is 
going to be a rude Tartar's hut or a St, Mark's Cathedral, 
and begin to write out the intricate poem of their life 
without knowing whether it is to be a Homer's "Odyssey" 
or a rhymester's botch. Out of one thousand, nine hun- 
dred and ninety-nine have no life-plot. Booted and 
spurred and caparisoned, they hasten along, and I run 
out and I say: "Hallo, man! Whither away?" "No- 
where !" they say. Oh ! young man, make every day's 
duty a filling up of the great life-plot. Alas ! that there 
should be on this sea of life so many ships that seem 
bound for no port. They are swept every whither by 
wind and wave, up by the mountains and down by the 
valleys. They sail with no chart. They gaze on no 
star. They long for no harbor. Oh ! young man, have 
a high ideal and press to it, and it will be a mighty safe- 
guard. There never were grander opportunities opening 
before young men than are opening now. Young men 
of the strong arm, and of the stout heart, and of the 
bounding step, I marshal you to-day for a great achieve- 
ment. 

Another safeguard is a respect for the Sabbath. Tell 
me how a young man spends his Sabbath, and I will tell 
you what are his prospects in business, and I will tell 
you what are his prospects for the eternal world. God has 
thrust into our busy life a sacred day when we are to 
look after our souls. Is it exorbitant, after giving six 
days to the feeding and the clothing of these perishable 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



217 



bodies, that God should demand one day for the feeding 
and the clothing of the immortal soul ? Our bodies are 
seven-day clocks, and they need to be wound up, and if 
they are not wound up they run down into the grave. 
No man can continuously break the Sabbath and keep 
his physical and mental health. Ask those aged men 
and they will tell you they never knew men who continu- 
ously broke the Sabbath who did not fail either in mind, 
body or moral principle. A manufacturer gave this as 
his experience. He said : "I owned a factory on the 
Lehigh. Everything prospered. I kept the Sabbath, 
and everything went on well. But one Sabbath morning 
I bethought myself of a new shuttle, and I thought I 
would invent that shuttle before sunset ; and I refused 
all food and drink until I had completed that shuttle. 
By sundown I had completed it. The next day, Monday, 
I showed to my workmen and friends this new shuttle. 
They all congratulated me on my great success. I put 
that shuttle into play. I enlarged my business ; but, sir, 
that Sunday's work cost me $30,000. From that day 
everything went wrong. I failed in business, and I lost 
my mill. " Oh, my friends, keep the Lord's day. You 
may think it old-fogy advice, but I give it to you now : 
"Bemember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six 
days shalt thou labor and do all thy work ; but the sev- 
enth is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God ; in it thou 
shalt not do any work." A man said that he would 
prove that all this was a fallacy, and so he said :"I shall 
raise a Sunday crop. " And he ploughed the field on the 
Sabbath, and then he put in the seed on the Sabbath 
and he cultured the ground on the Sabbath. When the 
harvest was ripe he reaped it on the Sabbath, and he car- 
ried it into the mow on the Sabbath, and then he stood 
out defiant to his Christian neighbors and said: "There, 



218 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



that is my Sunday crop, and ii is all garnered. " After 
awhile a storm came up, and a great darkness, and the 
lightnings of heaven struck the barn, and away went his 
Sunday crop ! 

There is one safeguard that I want to present. I have 
saved it until the last because I want it to be the more 
emphatic . The great safeguard for every young man is the 
Christian religion. Nothing can take the place of it. You 
may have gracefulness enough to put to the blush Lord 
Chesterfield, you may have foreign languages dropping 
from your tongue, you may discuss laws and literature, 
you may have a pen of unequaled polish and power, you 
may have so much business tact that you can get the 
largest salary in a banking house, you may be as sharp 
as Herod and as strong as Samson, and with as long 
locks as those which hung Absalom, and yet you have 
no safety against temptation. Some of you look forward 
to life with great despondency. I know it. I see it 
in your faces from time to time. You say: "All the 
occupations and professions are full, and there's no 
chance for me." "Oh ! young man, cheer up, I will tell 
you how you can make your fortune. Seek first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all other 
things will be added. I know you do not want to be 
mean in this matter. You will not empty the brimming 
cup of life, and then pour the dregs on God's altar. To 
a generous Saviour you will not act like that ; you have 
not the heart to act like that. That is not manly. That 
is not honorable. That is not brave. Your great want 
is a new heart, and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ 
I tell you so to-day, and the blessed Spirit presses 
through the solemnities of this hour to put the cup of 
life to your thirsty lips. Oh ! thrust it not back. Mercy 
presents it — bleeding mercy, long-suffering Mercy. De* 



SAFEGUARDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



219 



spise all other friendships, yrove recreant to all other 
bargains, but despise God's love for your dying soul — do 
not do that. There comes a crisis in a man's life, and the 
trouble is he does not know it is the crisis. I got a letter 
this week I thought to have brought it with me to 
church and read you a portion of it — in which a man 
says to me : 

"I start out now to preach the gospel of righteousness 
and temperance to the people. Do you remember me ? 
I am the man who appeared at the close of the service 
when you were worshipping in the chapel after you 
came from Philadelphia, Do you remember at the close 
of the service a man coming up to you all a tremble with 
conviction, and crying out for mercy, and telling you he 
had a very bad business, and he thought he would change 
it ? That was the turning point in my history. I gave 
up my bad business. I gave my heart to God, and the 
desire to serve Him has grown upon me all these years, 
until now woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel." 

That Sunday night, in the chapel, now the Lay College, 
was the turning point in that young man's history. This 
very Sabbath hour will be the turning point in the his- 
tory of a hundred young men in this house. God help 
us. I once stood on an anniversary platform with a 
clergyman who told this marvelous story. He said : 

"Thirty years ago two young men started out to attend 
Park Theater, New York, to see a play which made religion 
ridiculous and hypocritical. They had been brought up 
in Christian families. They started for the theater to 
see that vile play, and their early convictions came back 
upon them. They felt it was not right to go, but still 
they went. They came to the door of the theater. One 
of the young men stopped and started for home, but re- 
turned and came up to the door, but had not the courage 



220 



SAFEGUABDS OF YOUNG MEN. 



to go in. He again started for home, and went home. 
The other young man went in. He went from one de- 
gree of temptation to another. Caught in the whirl of 
frivolity and sin, he sank lower and lower. He lost his 
business position. He lost his morals. He lost his soul. 
He died a dreadful death, not one star of mercy shining 
on it. I stand before you to-day," said that minister, 
"to thank God that for twenty years I have been per- 
mitted to preach the Gospel. I am the other young 
man." 

Oh ! you see that was the turning point — the one went 
back, the other went on. That great roaring world of 
New York life will soon break in upon you, young men. 
Will the wild wave dash out the impressions of this day 
as an ocean billow dashes letters out of the sand on the 
beach ? You need something better than this world can 
give you. I beat on your heart and it sounds hollow. 
You want something great and grand and glorious to fill 
it, and here is the religion that can do it. God save you ! 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



221 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE VOICES OF THE STEEET. 

Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice in the streets. 
— Prov.i: 20. 

We are all ready to listen to the voices of nature — the 
voices of the mountain, the voices of the sea, the voices 
of the storm, the voices of the star. As in some of the 
cathedrals in Europe, there is an organ at either end of 
the building, and the one instrument responds musically 
to the other, so in the great cathedral of nature, day 
responds to day, and night to night, and flower to flower, 
and star to star, in the great harmonies of the universe. 
The spring time is an evangelist in blossoms preaching 
of God's love; and the winter is a prophet — white 
bearded — denouncing woe against our sins. We are all 
ready to listen to the voices of nature ; but how few' of 
us learn anything from the voices of the noisy and dusty 
street. You go to your mechanism, and to your work> 
and to your merchandise, and you come back again — and 
often with how different a heart you pass through the 
streets. Are there no things for us to learn from these 
pavements over which we pass? Are there no tufts 
of truth growing up between these cobblestones ? beat- 
jen with the feet of toil, and pain, and pleasure, the 
slow tread of old age, and the quick step of childhood ? 
Aye, there are great harvests to be reaped; and this 
morning I thrust in the sickle because the harvest is 
ripe. < 'Wisdom crieth without, she uttereth her voice 



222 



TEtfi VQCES OF THE STREET. 



In the first plac,3, the street impresses me with the 
fact that this life is a scene of toil and struggle. By ten 
o'clock every day the city is jarring with wheels, and 
shuffling with feet, and humming with voices, and cov- 
ered with the breath of smoke-stacks, and a-rush with 
traffickers. Once in awhile you find a man going along 
with folded arms and with leisure step, as though he had 
nothing to do ; but for the most part, as you find men 
going down these streets on the way to business, there is 
anxiety in their faces, as though they had some errand 
which must be executed at the first possible moment. 
You are jostled by those who have bargains to make and 
notes to sell. Up this ladder with a hod of bricks, out 
of this bank with a roll of bills, on this dray with a load 
of goods, digging a cellar, or shingling a roof, or shoeing 
a horse, or building a wall, or mending a watch, or bind- 
ing a book. Industry, with her thousand arms and 
thousand eyes, and thousand feet, goes on singing her 
song of work ! work ! work ! while the mills drum it, and 
the steam-whistles fife it. All this is not because men 
love toil. Some one remarked : ' 'Every man is as lazy 
as he can afford to be." But it is because necessity with 
stern brow and with uplifted whip, stands over you 
ready whenever you relax your toil to make your should- 
ers sting with the lash. Can it be that passing up and 
down these streets on your way to work and business 
that you do not learn anything of the world's toil, and 
anxiety, and struggle ? Oh ! how many drooping hearts, 
how many eyes on the watch, how many miles traveled, 
how many burdens carried, how many losses suffered, 
how many battles fought, how many victories gained, 
how many defeats suffered, how many exasperations en- 
dured — what losses, what hunger, what wretchedness, 
what pallor, what disease, what agony, what despair! 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 223 

Sometimes I have stopped at the corner of the street as 
the multitudes went hither and yon, and it has seemed 
to be a great pantomine, and as I looked upon it my 
heart broke. This great tide of human life that goes 
down the street is a rapid, tossed, and turned aside, and 
dashed ahead, and driven back — beautiful in its confu- 
sion, and confused in its beauty. In the carpeted aisles 
of the forest, in the woods from which the eternal shadow 
is never lifted, on the shore of the sea over whose iron 
coast tosses the tangled foam sprinkling the cracked 
cliffs with a baptism of w T hirlwind and tempest, is the 
best place to study God ; but in the rushing, swarming, 
raving street is the best place to study man. Going down 
to your place of business and coming home again, I 
charge you look about — see these signs of poverty, of 
wretchedness, of hunger, of sin, of bereavement-— and 
as you go through the streets, and come back through 
the streets, gather up in the arms of your prayer all the 
sorrow, all the losses, all the suffering, all the bereave- 
ments of those whom you pass, and present them in 
prayer before an all-sympathetic God. In the great day 
of eternity there will be thousands of persons with whom 
you in this world never exchanged one word, will rise 
up and call you blessed ; and there will be a thousand 
fingers pointed at you in heaven, saying: "That is the 
man, that is the woman, who helped me when I was hun- 
gry, and sick, and wandering, and lost, and heart-broken. 
That is the man, that is the woman, " and the blessing 
will come down upon you as Christ shall say: "I was 
hungry and ye fed me, I was naked and ye clothed me, 
I was sick and in prison and ye visited me ; inasmuch 
as ye did it to these poor waifs of the streets, ye did it 
to Me." 

&gain, the street impresses me with the fact that all 



224 



THE VOICES OF THE STEEET. 



classes and conditions of society must commingle. We 
sometimes culture a wicked exclusiveness. Intellect 
despises ignorance. Befmement will have nothing to do 
with boorishness. Gloves hate the sunburned hand, and 
the high forehead despises the flat head ; and the trim 
hedgerow will have nothing to do with the wild corpse- 
wood, and the Athens hates Nazareth. This ought not 
to be so. The astronomer must come down from his 
starry revelry and help us in our navigation. The sur- 
geon must come away from his study of the human 
organism and set our broken bones. The chemist must 
come away from his laboratory, where he has been study- 
ing analysis and synthesis, and help us to understand 
the nature of the soils. I bless God that all classes of 
people are compelled to meet on the street. The glitter- 
ing coach-wheel clashes against the scavenger's cart. 
Fine robes run against the pedlar's pack. Eobust health 
meets wan sickness. Honesty confronts fraud. Every 
class of people meets every other class. Independence and 
modesty, pride and humility, purity and beastliness, 
frankness and hypocrisy, meeting on the same block, in 
the same street, in the same city. Oh ! that is what 
Solomon meant when he said: "The rich and the poor 
meet together ; the Lord is the Maker of them all. " I 
like this democratic principle of the Gospel of Jesus 
Christ which recognizes the fact that we stand before 
God on one and the same platform. Do not take on any 
airs ; whatever position you have gained in society, you 
are nothing but a man, born of the same parent, regen- 
erated by the same Spirit, cleansed in the same blood, to 
lie down in the same dust, to get up in the same resur- 
rection. It is high time that we all acknowledged not 
only the Fatherhood of God, but the brotherhood of man. 
Again, -the street impresses me with the fact that it is 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



225 



a very hard thing for a man to keep his heart right and 
to get to heaven. Infinite temptations spring upon us 
from these places of public concourse. Amid so much 
affluence how much temptation to covetousness, and to 
be discontented with our humble lot. Amid so many- 
opportunities for over-reaching, what temptation to ex- 
tortion. Amid so much display, what temptation to 
vanity. Amid so many saloons of strong drink, what 
allurement to dissipation. In the maelstroms and hell 
gates of the street, how many make quick and eternal 
shipwreck. If a man-of-war comes back from a battle, 
and is towed into the navy-yard, we go down to look at 
the splintered spars and count the bullet-holes, and look 
with patriotic admiration on the flag that floated in vic- 
tory from the masthead. But that man is more of a 
curiosity who has gone through thirty years of the sharp- 
shooting of business life, and yet sails on, victor over the 
temptations of the street. Oh ! how many have gone 
down under the pressure, leaving not so much as the 
patch of canvas to tell where they perished. They never 
had any peace. Their dishonesties kept tolling in their 
ears. If I had an axe, and could split open the beams 
of that fine house, perhaps I would find in the very 
heart of it a skeleton. In his very best wine there is a 
smack of poor man's sweat. Oh ! is it strange that when 
a man has devoured widows' houses, he is disturbed with 
indigestion? All the forces of nature are against him. 
The floods are ready to drown him, and the earthquake 
to swallow him, and the fires to consume him, and the 
lightnings to smite him. Aye, all the armies of God 
are on the street, and in the day when the crowns of 
heaven are distributed, some of the brightest of them 
will be given to those men who were faithful to God and 
faithful to the souls of others amid the marts of busi- 



22 G THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 

ness, proving themselves the heroes of the street. Mighty 
were their temptations, mighty was their deliverance, 
and mighty shall be their triumph. 

Again, the street impresses me with the fact that life 
is full of pretension and sham. What subterfuge, what 
double dealing, what two-facedness. Do all people who 
wish you good morning really hope for you a happy day ? 
Do all the people who shake hands love each other? 
Are all those anxious about your health who inquire con- 
cerning it ? Do all want to see you who ask you to call ? 
Does all the world know half as much as it pretends to 
know? Is there not many a wretched stock of goods 
with a brilliant store window ? Passing up and down 
these streets to your business and your work, are you not 
impressed with the fact that society is hollow, and that 
there are subterfuges and pretensions ? Oh ! how many 
there are who swagger and strut, and how few people 
who are natural and walk. While fops simper, and fools 
chuckle, and simpletons giggle, how few people are 
natural and laugh. The courtesan and the libertine go 
down the street in beautiful apparel, while within the 
heart there are volcanoes of passion consuming their life 
away. I say these things not to create in you incredulity 
or misanthropy, nor do I forget there are thousands of 
people a gre^t deal better than they seem ; but I do not 
think any man so prepared for the conflict of this life 
until he knows this particular peril. Ehud comes pre- 
tending to pay his tax to king Eglon, and while he stands 
in front of the king, stabs him through with a dagger 
until the haft went in after the blade. Judas Iscariot 
kissed Christ. 

Again, the street impresses me with the fact that it is 
a great field for Christian charity. There are hunger 
and suffering, and want and wretchedness, in the coun- 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



227 



try ; but these evils chiefly congregate in our great cities. 
On every street crime prowls, and drunkenness staggers, 
and shame winks, and pauperism thrusts out its hand 
asking for alms. Here, want is most squalid and hun- 
ger is most lean. A Christian man, going along a street 
in New York, saw a poor lad, and he stopped and said : 
' 'My boy, do you know how to read and write?" The 
boy made no answer. The man asked the question twice 
and thrice. "Can you read and write?" and then the 
boy answered, with a tear plashing on the back of his 
hand. He said in defiance: "No, sir; I can't read nor 
write, neither. God, sir, don't want me to read and 
write. Didn't he take away my father so long ago I 
never remember to have seen him ? and havn't I had to- 
go along the streets to get something to fetch home tor 
eat for the folks ? and didn't I, as soon as I could carry 
a basket, have to go out and pick up cinders, and neve* 
have no schooling, sir? God don't want me to read, sir, 
I can't read, nor write neither." Oh, these poor warn 
derers ? They have no chance. Born in degradation, as 
they get up from their hands and knees to walk, they take 
their first step on the road to despair. Let us go forth in 
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to rescue them. Let us 
ministers not be afraid of soiling our black clothes wfeile 
we go down on that mission. While we are tying an 
elaborate knot in our cravat, or while we are in the 
study rounding off some period rhetorically, we might 
be saving a soul from death, and hiding a multitude of 
sins. 0 Christian laymen, go out on this work. If you 
are not willing to go forth yourself, then give of your 
means ; and if you are too lazy to go, and if you are too 
stingy to help, then get out of the way, and hide your- 
self in the dens and caves of the earth, lest, when 
Christ's chariot comes along, the horses' hoofs trample 



228 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



you into the mire. Beware lest the thousands of the 
! destitute of your city, in the last great day, rise up and 
curse your stupidity and your neglect. Down to work ! 
Lift thorn up ! One cold winter's day, as a Christian 
man was going along the Battery in New York, he saw 
a little girl seated at the gate, shivering in the cold. He 
said to her: "My child, what do you sit there for, this 
cold day?" "Oh," she replied, "I am waiting — I am 
waiting for somebody to come and take care of me.'* 
"Why?" said the man, "what makes you think any- 
body will come and take care of you?" "Oh, "she said, 
my mother died last week, and I was crying very 
much, and she said : 'Don't cry, my dear ; though I am 
gone and your father is gone, the Lord will send some- 
body to take care of you.' My mother never told a lie ; she 
said some one would come and take care of me, and I 
am waiting for them to come." 0 yes, they are waiting 
for you. Men who have money, men who have influence, 
men of churches, men of great hearts, gather them in, 
gather them in. It is not the will of your Heavenly 
Father that one of these little ones should perish. 

Lastly, the street impresses me with the fact that all 
the people are looking forward. I see expectancy writ- 
ten on almost every face I meet between here and Ful- 
ton ferry, or walking the whole length of Broadway. 
Where you find a thousand people walking straight on, 
you only find one man stopping and looking back. The 
fact is, God made us all to look ahead, because we are 
immortal. In this tramp of the multitude on the 
streets, I hear the tramp of a great host, marching and 
marching for eternity. Beyond the office, the store, the 
shop, the street, there is a world, populous and tremen- 
dous. Through God's grace, may you reach that blessed 
place. A great throng fills those boulevards and the 



THE VOICES OF THE STREET. 



229 



streets are arush with the chariots of conquerors. The 
inhabitants go up and clown, but they never weep and 
they never toil. A river flows through that city, with 
rounded and luxurious banks, and trees of life laden with 
everlasting fruitage bend their branches to dip the crys- 
tal. No plumed hearse rattles over that pavement, for 
they are never sick. With immortal health glowing in 
every vein they know not how to die. Those towers of 
strength, those palaces of beauty, gleam in the light of 
a sun that never sets. Oh, heaven, beautiful heaven ! 
Heaven, where our friends are. They take no census in 
that city, for it is inhabited by "a multitude which no 
man can number. " Rank above rank. Host above host. 
Gallery above gallery, sweeping all around the heavens. 
Thousands of thousands. Millions of millions. Quad- 
rillions of quadrillions. Quintillions of quintillions. 
Blessed are they who enter in through the gate into that 
city. Oh ! start for it this morning. Through the blood 
of the great sacrifice of the Son of God,take up your march 
for heaven. The spirit and the bride say come, and who- 
soever will, let him come and take of the water of life 
"freely." Join this great throng who this morning, for 
the first time, espouse their faith in Christ. AH the 
doors of invitation are open. "And I saw twelve gates 
and they were twelve pearls." 



230 



HEKOES IN COMMON LIFE, 



CHAPTER XVII. 

HEEOES IN COMMON LIFE. 
Thou, therefore, endure hardness. — II. Timothy ii: 3. 

Historians are not slow to acknowledge the merits of 
great military chieftains. "We have the full-length por- 
traits of the Cromwells, the Washingtons, the Napoleons, 
and the Wellingtons of the world. History is not writ- 
ten in black ink, but with red ink of human blood. The 
gods of human ambition do not drink from bowls made 
out of silver, or gold, or precious stones, but out of the 
bleached skulls of the fallen. But I am now to unroll 
before you a scroll of heroes that the world has never 
acknowledged ; those who faced no guns, blew no bugle- 
blast, conquered no cities, chained no captives to their 
chariot-wheels, and yet, in the great day of eternity, will 
stand higher than those whose names startled the nations ; 
and seraph, and rapt spirit, and archangel will tell their 
deeds to a listening universe. I mean the heroes of 
common, every-day life. 

In this roll, in the first place, I find all the heroes of 
the sick room. When Satan had failed to overcome 
Job, he said to God, "Put forth thy hand and touch his 
bones and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face. " 
Satan had found out what we have all found out, that 
sickness is the greatest test of one's character. A man 
who can stand that can stand anything. To be shut in 
a room as fast as though it were a bastile. To be so 
nervous you cannot endure the tap of a child's foot. To 



HEEOES IN COMMON LIFE. 



231 



have luxuriant fruit, which tempts the appetite of the 
robust and healthy, excite our loathing and disgust when 
it first appears on the platter. To have the rapier of 
pain strike through the side, or across the temples, like a 
razor, or to put the foot into a vice, or throw the whole 
body into a blaze of fever. Yet there have been men 
and women, but more women than men, who have cheer- 
fully endured this hardness. Through years of exhaust- 
ing rheumatisms and excruciating neuralgias they have 
gone, and through bodily distresses that rasped the 
nerves, and tore the muscles, and paled the cheeks, and 
stooped the shoulders. By the dim light of the sick 
room taper they saw on their wall the picture of that 
land where the inhabitants are never sick. Through the 
dead silence of the night they heard the chorus of the 
angels. The cancer ate away her life from week to week 
and day to day, and she became weaker and weaker, and 
every < 'good night" was feebler than the "good night" 
before — yet never sad. The children looked up into her 
face and saw suffering transformed into a heavenly smile. 
Those who suffered on the battle-field, amid shot and 
shell, were not so much heroes and heroines as those who 
in the field hospital and in the asylum had fevers which 
no ice could cool and no surgery could cure. No shout 
of comrade to cheer them, but numbness, and, aching, 
and homesickness — yet, willing to suffer, confident in 
God, hopeful of heaven. Heroes of rheumatism. He- 
roes of neuralgia. Heroes of spinal complaint. Heroes 
of sick headache. Heroes of lifelong invalidism. He- 
roes and heroines. They shall reign for ever and for ever. 

Hark ! I catch just one note of the eternal anthem : 
"There shall be no more pain." Bless God for that. 

In this roll I also find the heroes of toil, who do their 
work uncomplainingly. It is comparatively easy to lead 



23^ HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 

a regiment into battle when you know that the whole 
nation will applaud the victory ; it is comparatively easy 
to doctor the sick when you know that your skill will be 
appreciated by a large company of friends and relatives ; 
it is comparatively easy to address an audience when in 
the gleaming eyes and the flushed cheeks you know that 
your sentiments are adopted; but to do sewing where 
you expect that the employer will come and thrust his 
thumb through the work to show how imperfect it is, or 
to have the whole garment thrown .back on you to be 
done over again ; to build a wall and know there will be 
no one to say you did it well, but only a swearing em- 
ployer howling across the scaffold ; to work until youi 
eyes are dim and your back aches, and your heart faints, 
and to know that if you stop before night your children 
will starve. Ah ! the sword has not slain so many as 
the needle. The great battle-fields of our last war were 
not Gettysburg and Shiloh and South Mountain. The 
great battle-fields of the last war were in the arsenals, 
and in the shops and in the attics, where women made 
army jackets for a sixpence. They toiled on until they 
died. They had no funeral eulogium, but in the name 
of my God, this morning, I enroll their names among 
those of whom the world was not worthy. Heroes of 
the needle. Heroes of the sewing-machine. Heroes of 
the attic. Heroes of the cellar. Heroes and heroines, 
Bless God for them. 

In this roll I also find the heroes who have uncom- 
plainingly endured domestic injustices. There are men 
who for their toil and anxiety have no sympathy in their 
homes. Exhausting application to business gets them a 
livelihood, but an unfrugal wife scatters it. He is fret- 
ted at from the moment he enters the door until he 
comes out of it. The exasperations of business life 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. *2i'6'6 

augmented by the exasperations of domestic life. Such 
men are laughed at, but they have a heart-breaking- 
trouble, and they would have long ago gone into appal- 
ling dissipations but for the grace of God. Society to- 
day is strewn with the wrecks of men who under the 
north-east storm of domestic infelicity have been driven 
on the rocks. There are tens of thousands of drunkards 
in this country to-day, made such by their wives. That 
is not poetry ! That is prose ! But the wrong is gener- 
ally in the opposite direction. You would not have to 
go far to find a wife whose life is a perpetual martyrdom. 
Something heavier than a stroke of the fist ; unkind 
words, staggerings home at midnight, and constant mal- 
treatment, which have left her only a wreck of what she 
Was on that day when in the midst of a brilliant assem- 
blage the vows were taken, and full organ played the 
Wedding march, and the carriage rolled away with the 
benediction of the people. What was the burning of 
Latimer and Eidley at the stake compared with this ? 
Those men soon became unconscious in the fire, but here 
is a fifty years' martyrdom, a fifty years' putting to death, 
yet uncomplaining. No bitter words when the rollicking 
companions at two o'clock in the morning pitch the hus- 
band dead drunk into the front entry. No bitter words 
when wiping from the swollen brow the blood struck 
out in a midnight carousal. Bending over the battered 
and bruised form of -Jaim who, when he took her from 
her father's home, promised love, and kindness, and pro- 
tection, yet nothing but sympathy, and prayers, and 
forgiveness before they are agked for. No bitter words 
when the family Bible goes for rum, and the pawn- 
broker's shop gets the last decent dress. Some day, de- 
siring to evoke the story of her sorrows, you say : "Well, 
how are you getting along now ?" and rallying her trem- 



234 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 



bling voice, and quieting her quivering lip, she says : 
"Pretty well, I thank you, pretty well." She never will 
tell you. In the delirium of her last sickness she may 
tell all the secrets of her lifetime, but she will not tell 
that. Not until the books of eternity are opened on the 
thrones of judgment will ever be known what she has 
suffered. Oh ! ye who are twisting a garland for the 
victor, put it on that pale brow. When she is dead the 
neighbors will beg linen to make her a shroud, and she 
will be carried out in a plain box with no silver plate to 
tell her years, for she has lived a thousand years of trial 
and anguish. The gamblers and swindlers who destroyed 
her husband will not come to the funeral. One carriage 
will be enough for that funeral — one carriage to carry 
the orphans and the two Christian women who presided 
over the obsequies. But there is a flash, and the open- 
ing of a celestial door, and a shout : "Lift up your head, 
ye everlasting gate, and let her come in ! " And Christ 
will step forth and say: "Come in! ye suffered with 
me on earth, be glorified with me in heaven." What is 
the highest throne in heaven? You say: "The throne 
of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb." No doubt 
about it. What is the next highest throne in heaven? 
While I speak it seems to me that it will be the throne 
of the drunkard's wife, if she, with cheerful patience, 
endured all her earthly torture. Heroes and heroines. 

I find also in this roll the heroes of Christian charity. 
We all admire the George Peabodys and the James 
Lenoxes of the earth, who give tens and hundreds of 
thousands of dollars to go&d objects. A few days ago 
Moses H. Grinnell was buried, and the most significant 
thing about the ceremonies, as I read them, was that 
there was no sermon and no oration ; a plain hymn, a 
prayer, and a benediction. Well, I said, that is very 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 



235 



beautituL All Christendom pronounces the eulogium 
of Moses H. Grinnell, and the icebergs that stand as 
monuments to Franklin and his men will stand as 
the monuments of this great merchant, and the sunlight 
that plays upon the glittering cliff will write his epitaph. 
But I am speaking this morning of those who, out of 
their pinched poverty, help others — of such men as those 
Christian missionaries at the West, who are living on 
$250 a year that they may proclaim Christ to the peo- 
ple, one of them, writing to the secretary in New York, 
saying :"I thank you for that $25. Until yesterday we 
have had no meat in our house for three months. "We 
have suffered terribly. My children have no shoes this 
winter." And of those people who have only a half loaf 
of bread, but give a piece of it to others who are hun- 
grier ; and of those who have only a scuttle of coal, but 
help others to fuel ; and of those who have only a dollar 
in their pocket, and give twenty-five cents to somebody 
else ; and of that father who wears a shabby coat, and of 
that mother who wears a faded dress, that their children 
may be well apparelled. You call tli3m paupers, or rag- 
muffins, or emigrants. I call them heroes and heroines. 
You and I may not know where they live, or what their 
name is. God knows, and they have more angels hover- 
ing over them than you and I have, and they will have 
a higher seat in heaven. 

They may have only a cup of cold water to give a poor 
traveler, or may have only picked a splinter from under 
the nail of a child's finger, or have put only two mites 
into the treasury, but the Lord knows them. Consider- 
ing what they had, they did more than we have ever 
done, and their faded dress will become a white robe, 
and the small room will be an eternal mansion, and the 
old hat will be a coronet of victory, and all the applause 



236 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 



of earth and all the shouting of heaven will be drowned 
out when God rises -up to give his reward to those hum- 
ble workers in his kingdom, and to say to them: "Well 
done, good and faithful servant. " You have all seen or 
heard of the ruin of Melrose Abbey. I suppose in some 
respects it is the most exquisite ruin on earth. And yet, 
looking at it I was not so impressed — you may set it 
down to bad taste — but I was not so deeply stirred as I was 
at a tombstone at the foot of that abbey — the tombstone 
placed by Walter Scott over the grave of an old man 
who had served him for a good many years in his house 
— the inscription most significant, but I defy any man 
to stand there and read it without tears coming into his 
eyes — the epitaph : "Well done, good and faithful ser- 
vent." Oh ! when our work is over, will it be found that 
because of anything,we have done for God, or the church, 
or suffering humanity, that such an inscription is ap- 
propriate for us ? God grant it. 

Who are those who were bravest and deserved the 
greatest monument — Lord Claverhouse and his burly 
soldiers or John Brown, the Edinburgh carrier and his 
wife ? Mr. Atkins, the persecuted minister of Jesus Christ 
in Scotland, was secreted by John Brown and his wife, and 
Claverhouse rode up one day with his armed men and 
shouted in front of the house. John Brown's little girl 
came out. He said to her: "Well, miss, is Mr. Atkins 
here ?" She made no answer, for she could not betray the 
minister of the Gospel. "Ha!" Claverhouse said, "then 
you are a chip of the old block, are you ? I have some- 
thing in my pocket for you. It is a nosegay. Some 
people call it a thumbscrew, but I call it a nosegay." 
And he got off his horse, and he put it on the little girl's 
hand, and begin to turn it until the bones cracked, and 
she cried. He said, "don't cry, don't cry ; this isn't a 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 237 

thumbscrew; this is a nosegay." And they heard the 
child's cry, and the father and mother came out, and 
Claverhouse said, "Ha ! it seems that you three have 
laid your holy heads together determined to die like all 
the rest of your hypocritical, canting, snivelling crew ; 
rather than give up good Mr. Atkins, pious Mr. Atkins, 
you would die. I have a telescope with me that will 
improve your vision," and he pulled out a pistol. "Now," 
he said, "you old pragmatical, lest you should catch 
cold in this cold morning of Scotland, and for the honor 
and safety of the king, to say nothing of the glory of 
God and the good of our souls, I will proceed simply 
and in the neatest and most expeditious style possible to 
blow your brains out." John Brown fell upon his knees 
and began to pray. "Ah !" said Claverhouse, "look out, 
if you are going to pray ; steer clear of the king, the 
council, and Eichard Cameron." "0 ! Lord," said John 
Brown, "since it seems to be thy will that I should leave 
this world for a world where I can love thee better and 
serve thee more, I put this poor widow woman and these 
helpless, fatherless children into thy hands. We have 
been together in peace a good while, but now we must 
look forth to abetter meeting in heaven, and as for these 
poor creatures, blindfolded and infatuated, that stand 
before me, convert them before it be too late, and may 
they who have sat in judgment in this lonely place on 
this blessed morning, upon me, a poor, defenceless fel- 
low-creature — may they, in the last judgment find that 
mercy which tney have refused to me, thy most unwor- 
thy, but faithful servant. Amen." He rose up and said, 
"Isabel, the hour has come of which I spoke to you on 
the morning when I proposed hand and heart to you ; 
and are you willing now, for the love of God, to let me 
die?" She put her arms around him and said:— "The 



238 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 



Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be 
the name of the Lord!" "Stop that snivelling," said 
Claverhouse. "I have had enough of it. Soldiers, do 
your work. Take aim ! Fire !" and the head of John 
Brown was scattered on the ground. While the wife 
was gathering up in her apron the fragments of her hus- 
band's head — gathering them up for burial — Claverhouse 
looked into her face and s&id, "Now, my good woman, 
how do you feel now about your bonnie man?" "Oh!" 
she said, "I always thought weel of him ; he has been 
very good to me ; I nad no reason for thinking anything 
but weel of him, and I think oetter of him now." Oh! 
what a grand thing it will be m the last day to see God 
pick out his neroes and heroines. "Who are those pau- 
pers of eternity trudging off from the gates of heaven ? 
Who are they ? The Lord Claverhouses and the Herods 
and those who had sceptres, and crowns, and thrones, 
but they lived for their own aggrandisement, and they 
broke the heart of nations. Heroes of earth, but pau- 
pers in eternity. I beat the drums of their eternal des- 
pair. Woe ! woe ! woe ! 

But there is great excitement in heaven. Why those 
long processions ? Why the booming of that great bell 
in the tower ? It is coronation day in heaven. 

Who are those rising on the thrones, with crowns of 
eternal royalty ? They must have been great people on 
earth, world-renowned people. No. They taught in a 
ragged school. Taught in a ragged school ! Is that all ? 
That is all. Who are those souls waving sceptres of 
eternal dominion ? Why, they were -little children who 
waited on invalid mothers. That all ? That is alL She 
was called "Little Mary" on earth. She is an empress 
now. Who are that great multitude on the highest 
thrones of heaven ? Who are. they ? Why, they fed the 



HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 



239 



hungry, they clothed the naked, they healed the sick, they 
comforted the heart-broken. They never found any rest 
until they put their head down on the pillow of the sep- 
ulchre. God watched them. God laughed defiance at 
the enemies who put their heels hard down on these His 
dear children ; and one day the Lord struck His hand so 
hard on His thigh that the omnipotent sword rattled in 
the buckler, as He said : "I am their God, and no weapon 
formed against them shall prosper." What harm can 
the world do you when the Lord Almighty with un- 
sheathed sword fights for you. " 

I preach this sermon this morning in comfort. Go 
home to the place just where God has put you to play 
the hero or the heroine. Do not envy any man his 
money, or his applause, or his social position. Do not 
envy any woman her wardrobe, or her exquisite appear- 
ance. Be the hero or the heroine. If there be no flour 
in the house, and you do not know where your children 
are to get bread, listen, and you will hear something 
tapping against the window-pane. Go to the window 
and you will find it is the beak of a raven, and open the 
window, and there will fly in the messenger that fed 
Elijah. Do you think that the God who grows the cot- 
ton of the South will let you freeze for lack of clothes ? 
Do you think that the God who allowed the disciples on 
Sunday morning to go into the grain-field, and then take 
the grain and rub it in their hands and eat — do you 
think God will let you starve ? Did you ever hear the 
* experience of that old man: *'I have been young, and 
now am I old, yet have I never seen the righteous for- 
saken, or his seed begging bread?" Get up out of your 
discouragement, 0 ! troubled soul, 0 ! sewing woman, 
0 ! man, kicked and cuffed by unjust employers, 0 ! ye 
who are hard besot in the battle of life and know not 



240 HEROES IN COMMON LIFE. 

which way to turn, 0 ! you bereft one, 0 ! you sick one 
with complaints you have told to no one, come and get 
the comfort of this subject. Listen to our great Cap- 
tain's cheer: "To him that overcometh will I give to 
eat of the fruit of the tree of life which is in the midst 
of the Paradise of God, " 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



241 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 

Then I went up in the night by the brook and viewed the wall, 
and turned back, and entered by the gate of the valley, and so re- 
turned.— Nehemiah ii: 15. 

A dead city is more suggestive than a living city — 
past Rome than present Rome — ruins rather than 
newly frescoed cathedral. But the best time to visit a 
ruin is by moonlight. The Coliseum is far more fasci- 
nating to the traveler after sundown than before. You * 
may stand by daylight amid the monastic ruins of Mel- 
rose Abbey, and study shafted oriel, and rosetted stone 
and mullion, but they throw their strongest witchery by 
moonlight. Some of you remember what the enchanter 
of Scotland said in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel;" 

"Wouldst thou view fair Melrose aright, 
Go visit it by the pale moonlight." 

Washington Irving describes the Andalusian moon- 
light upon the Alhambra ruins as amounting to an en- 
chantment. My text presents you Jerusalem in ruins. 
The tower down. The gates down. The walls down. 
Everything down. Nehemiah on horseback, by moon- 
light looking upon the ruins. While he rides, there are 
some friends on foot going with him, for they do not 
want the many horses to disturb the suspicions of the 
people. These people do not know the secret of Nehe- 
miah's heart, but they are going as a sort of body-guapcl. 



242 THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN, 

1 hear the clicking hoofs of the horse on which Nehe- 
miah rides, as he guides it this way and that, into this 
gate and out of that, winding through that gate amid 
the debris of once great Jerusalem. Now the horse 
comes to a dead halt at the tumbled masonry where he 
cannot pass. Now he shies off at the charred timbers. 
Now he comes along where the water under the moon- 
light flashes from the mouth of the brazen dragon after 
which the gate was named. Heavy-hearted Nehemiah ! 
Eiding in and out, now by his old home desolated, now 
by the defaced Temple, now amid the scars of the city 
that had gone down under battering-ram and conflagra- 
tion. The escorting party knows not what Nehemiah 
means. Is he getting crazy? Have his own personal 
sorrows, added to the sorrows of the nation, unbalanced 
his intellect ? Still the midnight exploration goes on. Ne- 
hemiah on horseback rides through the fish gate, by the 
tower of the furnaces, by the king's pool, by the dragon well, 
in and out, in and out, until the midnight ride is com- 
pleted, and Nehemiah dismounts from his horse, and to 
the amazed and confounded and incredulous body-guard, 
declares the dead secret of his heart when he says : 
"Come, now, let us build Jerusalem." "What, Nehe- 
miah, have you any money?" "No." "Have you any 
kingly authority?" "No." "Have you any eloquence?" 
"No." Yet that midnight, moonlight ride of Nehemiah 
resulted in the glorious rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem. 
The people knew not how the thing was to be clone, but 
with great enthusiasm they cried out: "Let us rise up 
now and build the city." Some people laughed and said 
it could not be done. Some people were infuriate and 
offered physical violence, saying the thing should not be 
done. But the workmen went right on, standing on the 
wall, trowel in one hand, sword in the other, until the 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



243 



work was gloriously completed. At that very time, in 
Greece, Xenophon was writing a history, and Plato was 
making philosophy, and Demosthenes was rattling his 
rhetorical thunder; but all of them together did not do 
so much for the world as this midnight, moonlight ride 
of praying, courageous, homesick, close-mouthed Ne- 
hemiah. 

My subject first impresses me with the idea what an 
intense thing is church affection. Seize the bridle of that 
horee and stop Nehemiah. Why are you risking your 
life here in the night? Your horse will stumble over 
these ruins and fall on you. Stop this useless exposure 
of your life. No; Nehemiah will not stop. He at last 
tells us the whole story. He lets us know he was an 
exile in a far distant land, and he was a servant, a cup- 
bearer in the palace of Artaxerxes Longimanus, and one 
day, while he was handing the cup of wine to the king, 
the king said to him, "What is the matter with you? 
You are not sick. I know you must have some great 
trouble. What is the matter with you?" Then he told 
the king how that beloved Jerusalem was broken down; 
how that his father's tomb had been desecrated; how 
that the Temple had been dishonored and defaced ; how 
that the walls were scattered and broken. "Well," says 
King Artaxerxes, " what do you want?" " Well," said 
the cup-bearer Nehemiah, " I w« nt to go home. I want 
to fix up the grave of my father. I want to restore the 
beauty of the Temple. I want to rebuild the masonry 
of the city wall. Besides, I want passports so that 1 
shall not be hindered in my journey. And besides that," 
as you will find in the context, " I want an order on the 
man who keeps your forest for just so much timber as I 
may need for the rebuilding of the city." "How long 
shall you be gone?" said the king. The time of absence 



344 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSBMAH. 



is arranged. In hot haste this seeming adventnrer comet 
to Jerusalem, and in my text we find him on horseback, 
in the midnight, riding around the ruins. It is through 
the spectacles of this scene that we discover the ardent 
attachment of Nehemiah for sacred J erusalem, which in 
all ages has been type of the church of God, our 
Jerusalem, which we love just as much as Kehemiah 
loved his Jerusalem. The fact is that you love the 
church of God so much that there is no spot on earth so 
sacred, unless it be your own fireside. The church has 
been to you so much comfort and illumination that there 
is nothing that makes you so irate as to have it talked 
against. If there have been times when you have been 
carried into captivity by sickness, you longed for the 
Church, our holy Jerusalem, just as much as Kehemiah 
longed for his Jerusalem, and the first day you came out 
yon came to the house of the Lord. When the temple 
svas in ruins, as ours was five years ago, like Nehemiah, 
you walked around and looked at it, and in the moon- 
light you stood listening if yon could not hear the voice 
of the dead organ, the psalm of the expired Sabbaths. 
WTiat Jerusalem was to Nehemiah, the Church of God 
is to you. Sceptics and infidels may scoff at the Church 
as an obsolete affair, as a relic of the dark ages, as a con- 
vention of goody-goody people, but all the impression 
they have ever made on your mind against the Church ol 
brod is absolutely nothing. You would make more sac- 
rifices for it to-day than for any other institution, and if 
it were needful you would die in its defence. You can 
cake the words of the kingly poet as ke said: " If I 
forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her 
cunning." You understand in your own experience the 
pathos, the home- sickness, the courage, the holy enthu- 



BETRAYAL OF CHRIST IN THE GARDEN OF GETHSEMANE. 

«' He came to Jesus and said, Hail, Master, and kissed him. But 
Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a 
kiss ?"— Matt. 26. 49. Luke 22. 48. 



THE MIDNIGHT HOBSEMJLN. 



siasm of Nehemiah in his midnight moonlight ride 
around the ruins of his beloved Jerusalem. 

Again, my text impresses me with the fact that, before 
reconstruction, there must be an exploration of ruins. 
Why was not Nehemiah asleep under the covers? Why 
was not his horse stabled in the midnight? Let the police 
of the city arrest this midnight rider, out on some mis- 
chief. No. Nehemiah is going to rebuild the city, and 
he is making the preliminary exploration. In this gate, 
out that gate, east, west, north, south. All through the 
ruins. The ruins must be explored before the work of 
reconstruction can begin. The reason that bo many 
people in this day, apparently converted, do not stay 
converted is because they did not first explore the ruins 
of their own heart. The reason that there are so many 
professed Christians who in this day lie and forge and 
steal, and commit adultery, and go to the penitentiary, 
is because they first do not learn the ruin of their own 
heart. They have not found out that " the heart is de- 
ceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." The} 
had an idea that they were almost right, and they built 
religion as a sort of extension, as an ornamental cupola. 
There was a superstructure of religion built on a sub 
stratum of unrepented sins. The trouble with a good 
deal of modern theology is that instead of building o& 
the right foundation, it builds on the debris of an unre- 
regenerated nature. They attempt to rebuild Jerusalem 
before, in the midnight of conviction, they have seen 
the ghastliness of the ruin. They have such a poor 
foundation for their religion that the first north-east 
storm of temptation blows them down. I have no faith 
in a man's conversion if he is not converted in the old- 
fashioned way — John Bunyan's way, John Wesley's way, 
John Calvin's way. Paul's way, Christ's way, God's way. 



246 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



A dentist said to me a few days ago, " Does that hurt?" 
Said I, "Of course it hurts. It is in your business aa 
in my profession. We have to hurt before we can help." 
You will never understand redemption until you under- 
stand ruin. A man tells me that some one is a member 
of the church. It makes no impression on my mind at 
all. I simply want to know whether he was converted 
in the old-fashioned way, or whether he was converted in 
the new-fashioned way. If he was converted in the old- 
fashioned way he will stand. If he was converted in the 
new-fashioned way he will not stand. That is all there is 
about it. A man comes to me to talk abont religion. 
The first question I ask him is, " Do you feel yourself 
to be a sinner?" If he say, "Well, I — yes," the hesi- 
tancy makes me feel that that man wants a ride on Ne- 
hemiah's horse by midnight through the ruins — in by 
the gate of his affections, out by the gate of his will; and 
before he has got through with that midnight ride he 
will drop the reins on the horse's neck, and will take his 
right hand and smite on his heart and say, "G-od be mer- 
ciful to me a sinner;" and before he has stabled hie 
horse he will take his feet out of the stirrups, and he 
will slide down on the ground, and he will kneel, crying, 
" Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy loving- 
kindness, according unto the multitude of thy tender 
mercies; blot out my transgressions, for I acknowledge 
ray transgressions, and my sins are ever before thee." 
Ah, my friends, you see this is not a complimentary gos- 
pel. That is what makes some people so mad. It comes 
to a man of a million dollars, and impenitent in his sins, 
and says, " You're a pauper." It comes to a woman of 
fairest cheek, who has never repented, and says, £< You're 
a sinner." It comes to a man priding himself on his 
independence, and says, " You're bound hand and foot by 



THIS MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



247 



the devil." It comes to our entire race arri says, 
" You're a ruin, a ghastly ruin, an illimitable ruin." 
Satan sometimes says to me, " Why do you preach that 
truth 1 Why don't you preach a gospel with no repen- 
tance in it? Why don't you flatter men's hearts so that 
you make them feel all right? Why don't you preach a 
humanitarian gospel with no repentance in it, saying 
nothing about the ruin, talking all the time about 
redemption? Instead of preaching to five thousand 
you might preach to twenty thousand, for there would 
be four times as many who would come to hear 
a popular truth as to hear an unpopular truth, and you 
have voice enough to make them hear." I say, "Get 
thee behind me, Satan." I would rather lead five souls 
into heaven than twenty thousand into hell. The re- 
demption of the gospel is a perfect farce if there is no 
ruin. " The whole need not a physician, but they that 
are sick." " If any one, though he be an angel from 
heaven, preach any other gospel than this," says the 
apostle, " let him be accursed." There must be the mid- 
night ride over the ruins before Jerusalem can be built 
There must be the clicking of the hoofs before there can 
be the ring of the trowels. 

Again. My subject gives me a specimen of busy and 
triumphant sadness. If there was any man in the 
world who had a right to mope and give up everything 
as lost, it was Nehemiah. You say, " He was a cup- 
bearer in the palace of Shushan, and it was a grand 
place." So it was. The hall of that palace was two hundred 
feet square, and the roof hovered over thirty- six marble 
pillars, each pillar sixty feet high; and the intense blue 
of the sky, and the deep green of the forest foliage, and 
the white of the driven snow, all hung trembling in the 
upholstery. But, my friends,you know very well that fine 



248 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



architecture will not put down home-sickness. Yet Nehe 
miah did not give up. Then when you see him going 
among these desolated streets, and by these dismantled 
towers, and by the torn-up grave of his father, you 
would suppose that he would have been disheartened, 
and that he would have dismounted from his horse and 
gone to his room and said: " Woe is me! My father's 
grave is torn up. The temple is dishonored. The walls 
are broken down. I have no money with which to 
rebuild. I wish I had never been born. I wish I were 
dead." Not so says Nehemiah. Although he had a grief 
so intense that it excited the commentary of his king, 
yet that penniless, expatriated Nehemiah rouses himself 
up to rebuild the city. He gets his permission of ab- 
sence. He gets his passports. He hastens away to 
Jerusalem. By night on horseback he rides through the 
ruins. He overcomes the most ferocious opposition. He 
arouses the piety and patriotism of the people, and in 
less than two months, namely, in fifty-two days, J erusa- 
lem was rebuilt That's what I call busy and triumpant 
sadness. 

My friends, the whole temptation is with you when 
you have trouble, to do just the opposite to the behavior 
of Nehemiah, and that is to give up. You say: "I 
have lost my child and can never smile again." You 
say, "I have lost my property, and I never can repair my 
fortunes." You say, "I have fallen into sin, and I never can 
start again for a new life." If Satan can make you form 
that resolution, and make you keep it, he has ruined you 
Trouble is not sent to crush you, but to arouse you, to 
animate you, to propel you. The blacksmith does not 
thrust the iron into the forge, and then blow away with 
the bellows, and then bring the hot iron out on the anvil 
and beat with stroke after stroke to ruin the iron, but to 



THE MIDNIGHT HORSEMAN. 



249 



prepare it for a better Tise. Oh that the Lord God of 
Nehemiah would rouse up all broken-hearted people to 
rebuild. Whipped, betrayed, shipwrecked, imprisoned, 
Paul went right on. The Italian martyr Algerius sits 
in his dungeon writing a letter, and he dates it "From 
the delectable orchard of the Leonine prison." That is 
what 1 call triumphant sadness. I knew a mother who 
buried her babe on Friday and on Sabbath appeared in 
the house of God and said: "Give me a class; give me a 
Sabbatli school class. I have no child now left me, and 
I would like to have a class of little children. Give me 
real poor children. Give me a class off the back street." 
That, I say, is beautiful. That is triumphant sadness- 
At three o'clock this afternoon, in a beautiful parlor in 
Philadelphia — a parlor pictured and statuetted — there will 
be from ten to twenty destitute children of the street. 
It has been so every Sabbath afternoon at three o'clock 
for sixteen years. These destitute children receive re- 
ligious instruction, concluding with cakes and sand- 
wiches. IIow do I know that that has been going on 
for sixteen years? I know it in this way. That was the 
first home in Philadelphia where I was called to comfort 
a great sorrow. They had a splendid boy, and he had 
been drowned at Long Branch. The father and mother 
almost idolized the boy, and the sob and shriek of that 
father and mother as they hung over the coffin resound 
in my ears to-day. There seemed to be no use of pray- 
ing, for when I knelt down to pray, the outcry in the 
room drowned out all the prayer. But the Lord com- 
forted that sorrow. They did not forget their trouble. 
If you should go this snowy afternoon into Laurel Hill, 
you would find a monument with the word "Walter" 
inscribed upon it, and a wreath of fresh flowers 
around the name. I think there has not been an hour 



260 



THE MIDNIGHT HOKSEMAIT. 



in sixteen years, winter or summer, when there was not 
a wreath of fresh flowers around Walter's name. But 
the Christian mother who sends those flowers there, hav- 
ing no child left, Sabbath afternoons mothers ten or 
twenty of the lost ones of the street. That is beautiful 
That is what I call busy and triumphant sadness. Here 
is a man who has lost his property. He does not go to 
hard drinking. He does not destroy his own life. He 
comes and says, "Harness me for Christian work. My 
money's gone. I have no treasures on earth. I want 
treasures in heaven. I have a voice and a heart to serve 
God." You say that that man has failed. He has not 
failed — he has triumphed. Oh, I wish I could persuade 
all the people who have any kind of trouble never to 
give up. I wish they would look at the midnight rider 
of the text, and that the four hoofs of that beast on 
which Nehemiah rode might cut to pieces all your dis- 
couragements, and hardships, and trials. Give up! 
Who is going to give up, when on the bosom of God he 
can have all his troubles hushed? Give up! Never 
think of giving up. Are you borne down with poverty! 
A little child was found holding her dead mother's hand 
in the darkness of a tenement-house, and some one com 
ing in, the little girl looked up, while holding her dead 
mother's hand, and said: "Oh, I do wish that God had 
made more light for poor folks. " My dear, God will be 
your light, God will be your shelter, God will be your 
home. Are you borne down with the bereavements of 
life! Is the house lonely now that the child is gone? 
Do not give up. Think of what the old sexton said 
when the minister asked him why he put so much care 
on the little graves, in the cemetery — so much more care 
than on the larger graves, and the old sexton said "Sir, 
you know that 'of such is the kingdom of heaven,' and 



THE MIDNIGHT HOUSEMAN. 



251 



1 think the Savior is pleased when He sees so much 
white clover growing around these little graves." But 
when the minister pressed the old sexton for a more sat- 
isfactory answer, the old sexton said: "Sir, about these 
larger graves, I don't know who are the Lord's saints 
and who are not; but you know, sir, it is clean different 
with the bairns." Oh, if you have had that keen, ten- 
der, indescribable sorrow that comes from the loss of a 
child, do not give up. The old sexton was right. It is 
all well with the bairns. Or, if you have sinned, if you 
have sinned grievously — sinned until you have been cast 
out by the Church, sinned until you have been cast out 
by society, do not give up. Perhaps there may be in 
this house one that could truthfully utter the lamenta- 
tion of another: 

"Once I was pure as the snow, bat I Mi- 
Fell like a snowflake, from heaven to hell- 
Fell, to be trampled as filth in the street- 
Fell, to be scoffed at, spit on, and beat; 
Praying, cursing, wishing to die. 
Selling my soul to whoever would buy, 
Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, 
Hating the living, and fearing the dead.** 

Do not give up. One like unto the Son of God comet 
to you to-day, saying, "Go and sin no more;" while He 
eries out to your assailants, "Let him that is without sin 
cast the first stone at her." Oh I there is no reason why 
any one in this house, by reason of any trouble or sin, 
should give up. Are you a foreigner, and in a strang8 
land! Nehemiah was an exile. Are you penniless? 
Nehemiah was poor. Are you homesick! Nehemiah 
was homesick. Are you broken-hearted! hehemiah 
was broken-hearted. But just see him in the text, riding 
along the sacrileged grave of his father, and by the 



252 



THE MIDNIGHT HuicS£MJL.a. 



dragon well, and through the fish gate, and by the king'* 
pool, in and out, in and out, the moonlight falling od 
the broken masonry, which throws a long shadow at 
which the horse shies, and at the same time that moon- 
light kindling up the features of this man till you see 
not only the mark of sad reminiscence, but the courage 
the hope, the enthusiasm of a man who knows that Jeru- 
salem will be rebuilded. I pick you up to-day, out oi 
your sins and out of your sorrow, and I put you against 
the warm heart of Christ. "The eternal God is thy 
refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." 



TRAPS FOR MEN. 



CHAPTER 1. 

" Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird."— 
Proverbs vi : 9. 

Early in the morning I went out with a fowler to 
catch wild pigeons. We hastened through the mountain 
gorge and into the forest. We spread out the net, and 
covered up the edges of it as well as we could. We 
arranged the call-bird, its feet fast, and its wings flap- 
ping in invitation to all fowls of heaven to settle down 
there. We retired into a booth of branches and leaves 
and waited. After a while, looking out of the door oi 
the booth, we saw a flock of birds in the sky. They 
came nearer and nearer, and after a while were about to 
swoop into the net, when suddenly they darted away. 
Again we waited. After awhile we saw another flock of 
birds. They came nearer and nearer until just at the 
moment when they were about to swoop they darted 
away. The fowler was very much disappointed as well 
as myself. We said to each other, u What is the matter?" 
and "Why were not these birds caught?" We went out 
and examined the net, and by a flutter of a branch of a 
tree part of the net had been conspicuously exposed, 
and the birds coming very near had seen their peril and 
darted away. When I saw that, I said to the old fowler, 
"That reminds me of a passage of Scripture: 6 Surely in 
vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird.' " Now 
the net in my text stands for temptation. 

33 



TRAPS FOB MEN. 



■ The call-bird of sin tempts men on from point to point 
and from branch to branch until they are about to drop 
into the net. If a man finds out in time that it is the 
temptation of the devi), or that evil men are attempting 
to capture his soul for time and for eternity, the man 
steps back. He says, u I am not to be caught in that 
way: I see what you are about: surely in vain is the 
net spread in the sight of any bird." 

There are two classes of temptations — the superficial 
and the subterraneous — those above ground, those under 
ground. If a man could see sin as it is, he would no 
more embrace it than he would embrace a leper. Sin is 
a daughter of hell, yet she is garlanded and robed and 
trinketed. Her voice is a warble. Her cheek is the 
setting sun. Her forehead is an aurora. She says to 
men: " Come, walk this path with me; it is thymed and 
primrosed, and the air is bewitched with the odors of 
the hanging gardens of heaven; the rivers are rivers of 
wine, and all you have to do is to drink them up in 
chalices that sparkle with diamond and amethyst and 
crysoprasus. See ! It is all bloom and roseate cloud 
and heaven." Oh! my friends, if for one moment the 
choiring of all these concerted voices of sin could be 
hushed, we should see the orchestra of the pit with hot 
breath blowing through fiery flute, and the skeleton arms 
on drums of thunder and darkness beating the chorus: 
' ; The end thereof is death." 

I want this morning to point out the insidious temp- 
tations that are assailing more especially our young men. 
The only kind of nature comparatively free from tempta- 
tion, so far as I can judge, is the cold, hard, stingy, mean 
temperament. What would Satan do with such a man 
if he got him ? Satan is not anxious to get a man who, 
after a while, may dispute with him the realm of ever- 



TRAPS FOR MEN. 



25 



Basting meanness. It is the generous young man, the 
ardent young man, the warm-hearted young man, the 
social young man, that is in especial peril. A pirate goes 
out on the sea, and one bright morning he puts the glass 
to his eye and looks off, and sees an empty vessel floating 
from port to port. He says: "Never mind; that's no 
prize for us." But the same morning he puts the glase 
to his eye, and he sees a vessel coming from'Australia laden 
with gold, or a vessel from the Indies laden with spices. 
He says: "That's our prize; bear down on it!" Across 
that unfortunate ship the grappling-hooks are thrown. 
The crew are blindfolded and are compelled to walk the 
plank. It is not the empty vessel, but the laden merchant- 
man that is the -temptation to the pirate. And a young 
man empty of head, empty of heart, empty of life — you 
want no Young Men's Christian Association to keep him 
safe; he is safe. He will not gamble unless it is with some- 
body else's stakes. He will not break the Sabbath unless 
somebody else pays the horse hire. He will not drink 
unless some one else treats him. He will hang around 
the bar hour after hour, waiting for some generous young 
man to come in. The generous young man comes in 
and accosts him and says: " Well, will you have a drink 
with me to-day? 1 ' The man, as though it were a sudden 
"thing for him, says: "Well, well, if you insist on it I 
will— I will." 

Too mean to go to perdition unless somebody else 
pays his expenses! For such young men 'we will not 
fight. We would no more contend for them than Tartary 
and Ethiopia would fight as to who should have the great 
Sahara Desert; but for those young men who are 
buoyant and enthusiastic, those who are determined to 
do something for time and for eternity — for them we 
will fight, and we' now declare everlasting war against 



26 



all the influences that assail them, and we ask all good 
men and 'philanthropists to wheel into line, and all the 
armies of Heaven to bear down upon the foe, and we pray 
Almighty God that with the thunderbolts of his wrath 
he will strike down and consume all these influences that 
are attempting to destroy the young men for whom 
Christ died. 

The first class of temptations that assaults a young man 
is led on by the skeptic. He will not admit he is an 
infidel or atheist. Oh, no! he is a "freethinker;" he is 
one of your "liberal" men; he is free and easy in 
religion. O! how liberal he is; he so " liberal " that he 
wiil give away his Bible; he is so "liberal " that he will 
give away the throne of eternal justice; he is so "liberal" 
that he would be willing to give God out of the universe; 
he is so "liberal" that he would give up his own soul 
and the souls of all his friends. Now, what more could 
you ask in the way of liberality? The victim of this 
skeptic has probably just come from the country. 
Through the intervention of friends he has been placed 
in a shop. On Saturday the skeptic says to him, "Well, 
what are you going to do to-morrow?" lie says, "I am 
going to church." "Is it possible?" says the skeptic. 
" Well, I used to do those things; I was brought up, I 
suppose, as you were, in a religious family, and I be- 
lieved all those things, but I got over it; the fact is, since 
X came to town I have read a great deal, and I have 
found that there are a great many things in the Bible 
that are ridiculous. Now, for instance, all that about 
the serpent being cursed to crawl in the garden of Eden 
because it had tempted our first parents; why you see 
how absurd it is ; you can tell from the very organiza- 
tion of the serpent that it had to crawl; it crawled before 
it was cursed just as well as it crawSed afterwards; you 



TRAPS FOR MEN. 



21 



can tell from its organization that it crawled. Then all 
that story about the whale swallowing Jonah, or Jonah 
swallowing the whale, which was it? It don't make any 
difference, the thing is absurd; it is ridiculous to sup- 
pose that a man could have gone down through the jaws 
of a sea monster and yet kept his life; why, li is respira- 
tion would have been hindered; he would have been 
digested; the gastric juice would have dissolved the 
fibrine and coagulated albumen, and Jonah would have 
been changed from prophet into chyle. Then all that 
story about the miraculous conception — why, it is per- 
fectly disgraceful. O! sir, I believe in the light of 
nature. This is the nineteenth century. Progress, sir, 
progress. I don't blame you, but after you have been in 
town as long as I have, you will think just as I do/' 

Thousands of young men are going down under that 
process day by day, and there is only here and there a 
young man who can endure this artillery of scorn. They 
are giving up their Bibles. The light of nature! They 
have the light of nature in China; they have it in Hin- 
dostan; they have it in Ceylon. Flowers there, stars 
there, waters there, winds there; but no civilization, no 
homes, no happiness. Lancets to cut, and Juggernauts 
to fall under, and hooks to swing on ; but no happiness. 
I tell you, my young brother, we have to take a religion 
of some kind. We have to choose between four or five. 
Shall it be the Koran of the Mohammedan, or the 
Shaster of the Hindoo, or the Zendavesta of the Persian, 
or the Confucius writings of the Chinese, or the Holy 
Scriptures? Take what you will; God helping me, I will 
take the Bible. Light for all darkness; rock for all 
foundation ; balm for all wounds. A glory that lifts its 
pillars of fire over the wilderness march. Do not give 
up your Bibles. If these people scoff at you as though 
17 



28 



TEAPS FOB MEN. 



religion and the Bible were fit only for weak-minded 
people, you just tell them you are not ashamed to be in 
the company of Burke the statesman, and Raphael the 
painter, and Thorwaldsen the sculptor, and Mozart the 
musician, and Blackstone the lawyer, and Bacon the 
philosopher, and Harvey the physician, and John 
Milton the poet. Ask them what infidelity has ever 
done to lift the fourteen hundred millions of the race 
out of barbarism. Ask them when infidelity ever insti- 
tuted a sanitary commission; and, before you leave their 
society once and for ever, tell them that they have in- 
sulted the memory of your Christian father, and spit 
upon the death-bed of your mother, and with swine's 
snout rooted up the grave of your sister who died believ- 
ing in the Lord Jesus. 

Young man, hold on to your Bible? It is the best 
book you ever owned. It will tell you how to dress, how 
to bargain, how to walk, how to act, how to live, how to 
die. Glorious Bible! whether on parchment or paper, 
in octavo or duodecimo, on the center table of the draw- 
ing-room or in the counting-room of the banker. Glo- 
rious Bible! Light to our feet and lamp to our path. 
Hold on to it! 

The second class of insidious temptations that comes 
upon our young men is led on by the dishonest employer. 
Every commercial establishment is a school. In liine 
cases out of ten, the principles of the employer become 
the principles of the employe. I ask the older mer- 
chants to bear me out in these statements. If, when you 
were just starting in life, in commercial life, you were 
told that honesty was not marketable, that though you 
might sell all the goods in the shop, you must not sell 
your conscience, that while you were to exercise all 
industry and tact, you were not to sell your conscience — 



' TRAPS FOR ME1T. 



29 



if you were taught that gains gotten by sin were com- 
bustible, and at the moment of ignition would be blown 
on by the breath of God until all the splendid estate 
would vanish into white ashes scattered in the whirl- 
wind — then that instruction has been to you a precaution 
and a help ever since. There are hundreds of commer- 
cial establishments in our great cities which are edu- 
cating a class of young men who will be the honor of 
the land, and there are other establishments which are 
educating young men to be nothing but sharpers. What 
chance is there for a young man who was taught in an 
establishment that it is right to lie, if it is smart, and 
that a French label is all that is necessary to make a thing 
French, and that you ought always to be honest when it 
pays, and that it is wrong to steal unless you do it well? 
Suppose, now, a young man just starting in life enters a 
place of that kind where there are ten young men, all 
drilled in the infamous practices of the establishment. 
He is ready to be taught. The young man has no theory 
of commercial ethics. Where is he to get his theory? 
He will get the theory from his employers. One day he 
pushes his wit a little beyond what the establishment 
demands of him, and he fleeces a customer until the 
clerk is on the verge of being seized by the law. What 
is done in the establishment? He is not arraigned. 
The head man of the establishment says to him : "Now, 
be careful; be careful, young man, you might be caught; 
but really that was splendidly done; you will get along 
in the world, I warrant you." Then that young man 
goes up until he becomes head clerk. He has found 
there is a premium on iniquity. 

One morning the employer comes to the establishment. 
He goes into his counting-room and throws up his hands 
and shouts: "Why, the safe has been robbed!" What 



30 



TRAPS FOR MElf. 



is the matter? Nothing, nothing; only the clerk who 
had been practicing a good while on customers is prac- 
ticing a little on the employer. No new principle intro- 
duced into that establishment. It is a poor rule that 
will not work both ways. You must never steal unless 
you can do it well. He did it well. I am not talking 
an abstraction ; I am talking a terrible and a crushing 
fact. 

Now here is a young man. Look at him to-day. 
Look at him five years from now, after he has been 
under trial in such an establishment. Here he stands 
in the shop to-day, his cheeks ruddy with the breath of 
the hills. He unrolls the goods on the counter in gen- 
tlemanly style. He commends them to the purchaser. 
He points out all the good points in the fabric. He 
effects the sale. The goods are wrapped up, and he dis- 
misses the customer with a cheerful "good morning," 
and the country merchant departs so impressed with the 
straightforwardness of that young man that he will come 
again and again, every spring and every autumn unless 
interfered with. The young man has been now in that 
establishment five years. He unrolls the goods on the 
counter. He says to the customer, "Now those are the 
best goods we have in our establishment;" they have bet- 
ter on the next shelf. He says: "We are selling these 
goods less than cost;" they are making twenty percent. 
He says: "There is nothing like them in all the city;" 
there are fifty shops that want to sell the same thing. 
He says: "Now, that is a durable article, it will wash;" 
yes, it will wash out. The sale is made, the goods are 
wrapped up, the country merchant goes' off feeling that 
he has an equivalent for his money, and the sharp clerk 
goes into the private room of the counting-house, and 
he says: "Well, I got rid of those goods at last; I really 



TRAPS FOR MEN. 



31 



thought we never would sell them ; I told him we were 
selling them less than cost, and he thought he was 
getting a good bargain; got rid of them at last." And 
the head of the firm says: ''That's well done, splendidly 
done; let's go over to Delmonico's." Meanwhile, God 
had recorded eight lies — four lies against the young man, 
four lies against his employer, for I undertake to say that 
the employer is responsible for all the iniquities of his 
clerks, and all the iniquities of those who are clerks of 
these clerks, down to the tenth generation, if those em- 
ployers inculcated iniquitous and damning principles. I 
stand before young men this morning who are under this 
pressure. I say, come out of it. "Oh!" you say, U I 
can't; I have my widowed mother to support, and if a 
man loses a situation now he can't get another one." 1 
say, come out of it. Go home to your mother and say 
to her, "Mother, I can't stay in that shop and be upright; 
what shall I do?" and if she is worthy of you she will 
say, "Come ont of it, my son — we will just throw our- 
selves on him who hath promised to be the God of the 
widow and the fatherless; he will take care of us." And 
I tell you no young man ever permanently suffered by 
such a course of conduct. In Philadelphia, in a drug 
shop, a young man said to his employer: "I want to 
please you, really, and I am willing to sell medicines on 
Sunday; but I can't sell this patent shoe-blacking on 
Sunday." "Well," said the head man, "you will have 
to do it, or else you will have to go away." The young 
man said: "I can't do it; I am willing to sell medicines, 
but not shoe-blacking." "Well, then, go! Go now." 
The young man went away. The Lord looked after him. 
The hundreds of thousands of dollars he won in this 
world were the smallest part of his fortune. God hon- 
ored him. By the course he took he saved his soul as 



32 



TRAP3 FOR MEN. 



well as his fortunes in the future. A man said to his 
employer: "I can't wash the wagon on Sunday morning; 
I am willing to wash it on Saturday afternoon; but, sir, 
you will please excuse me, I can't wash the wagon on 
Sunday morning." His employer said: "You must 
wash it; my carriage comes in every Saturday night, and 
you have got to wash it on Sunday morning." "I can't 
do it," the man said. They parted. The Lord looked 
after him, grandly looked after him. He is worth to-day 
a hundred-fold more than his employer ever was or ever 
will be, and he saved his soul. Young man, it is safe to 
do right. There are young men in this house to-day 
who, under this storm of temptation, are striking deeper 
and deeper their roots, and spreading out broader their 
branches. T ey are Daniels in Babylon, they are Josephs 
in the Egyptian court, they are Pauls amid the wild 
beasts at Ephesus. I preach to encourage them. Lay 
hold of God and be faithful. 

There is a mistake we make about young men. We 
put them in two classes: the one class is moral, the other 
is dissolute. The moral are safe. The dissolute cannot 
be reclaimed. I deny both propositions. The moral are 
not safe unless they have laid hold of God, and the dis- 
solute may be reclaimed. I suppose there are self- 
righteous men in this house who feel no need of God, 
and will not seek after him, and they will go out in the 
world and they will be tempted, and they will be flung 
down by misfortune, and they will go down, down, down, 
until some night you will see them going home hooting, 
raving, shouting blasphemy — going home to their mother? 
going home to their sister, going home to the young 
companion to whom, only a little while ago, in the pres- 
ence of a brilliant assemblage, flashing lights and orange 
blossoms, and censers swinging in the air, they promised 



TEAPS FOE MEN. 



33 



fidelity and purity, and kindness perpetual. As that 
man reaches the door, she will open it, not with an out- 
cry, but she will stagger back from the door as he comes 
in, and in her look there will be the prophecy of woes 
that are coming: want that will shiver in need of a fire, 
hunger that will cry in vain for bread, cruelties that will 
not leave the heart when they have crushed it, but pinch 
it again, and stab it again, until some night she will open 
the door of the place where her companion was ruined, 
and she will fling out her arm from under her ragged 
shawl and say, with almost omnipotent eloquence, "Give 
me back my husband! Give me back my protector! 
Give me back my all! Him of the kind heart and gentle 
words, and the manly brow — give him back to me!" 
And then the wretches, obese and filthy, will push back 
their matted locks, and they will say, "Put her out! 
Put her out!" Oh! self-righteous man, without God 
you are in peril. Seek after him to-day. Amid the ten 
thousand temptations of life there is no safety for a man 
without God. 

But I may be addressing some who have gone astray, 
and so I assault that other proposition that the dissolute 
cannot be reclaimed. Perhaps you have only gone a 
little astray. While I speak are you troubled? Is there 
a voice within you saying, " What did you do that for? 
Why did you go there ? What did you mean by that ?" 
Is there a memory in your soul that makes you tremble 
this morning ? God only knows all our hearts. Yea, 
if you have gone so far as to commit iniquities, and have 
gone through the whole catalogue, I invite you back 
this morning. The Lord waits for you. "Rejoice! 
O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer 
thee in the days of thy youth ; but know thou that for 
all these things God will bring thee into judgment." 



34 



Come. home, young man, to your father's God. Come 
home, young man, to your mother's God. O! I wish 
that all the batteries of the Gospel could to-day be un- 
limbered against all those influences which are taking 
down so many of our young men. I would like to blow 
a trumpet of warning, and recruit until this whole 
audience would march out on a crusade against the evils 
of society. But let none of us be disheartened. O ! 
Christian workers, my heart is high with hope. The 
dark horizon is blooming into the morning of which 
prophets spoke, and of which poets have dreamed, and 
of which painters have sketched. The world's bridal 
hour advances. The mountains will kiss the morning 
radiant and effulgent, and all the waves of the sea will 
become the crystal keys of a great organ, on which the 
fingers of everlasting joy shall play the grand march of 
a world redeemed. Instead of the thorn there shall come 
up the fir tree, and instead of the briar there shall come 
up the myrtle tree, and the mountains and the hills shall 
break forth into singing, and all the trees of the wood 
shall clap their hands! 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



35 



CHAPTEE n. 

STRANGERS WARNED. 

"And Solomon numbered all the strangers that were in the land of 
Israel."— 2 Chron. ii : 17. 

If, in the time when people traveled afoot or on camel- 
back, and vacillation from city to city was seldom, it was 
important that Solomon recognize the presence of stran- 
gers, how much more important, now in these days, when 
by railroad and steamboat the population of the earth 
are always in motion, and from one year's end to the 
other, our cities are crowded with visitors. Every morn- 
ing, on the Hudson River railroad track, there come in, 
I think, about six trains, and on the New Jersey railroad 
track some thirteen passenger trains ; so that all the 
depots and the wharves are a-rumble and a-clang with 
the coming in of a great immigration of strangers. 
Some of them come for purposes of barter, some for 
mechanism, some for artistic gratification, some for sight- 
seeing. A great many of them go out on the evening 
trains, and consequently the city makes but little im- 
pression upon them; but there are multitudes who, in 
the hotels and boarding-houses, make temporary resi- 
dence. They tarry here for three or four days, or as 
many weeks. They spend the days in the stores and the 
evenings in sight-seeing. Their temporary stay will 
make or break them, not only financially but morally, 
for this world and the world that is to come. Multitudes 
of them come into our morning and evening services. 
I am conscious that I stand in the presence of many 



36 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



of them now. I desire more especially to speak to 
them. May God give me the right word and help me to 
utter it in the right way. 

There have glided into this house those unknown to 
others, whose history, if told, would be more thrilling 
than the deepest tragedy, more exciting than Nilsson's 
song, more bright than a spring morning, more awful 
than a wintry midnight. If they could stand up here 
and tell the story of their escapes, and their temptations, 
and their bereavements, and their disasters, and their 
victories, and their defeats, there would be in this house 
such a commingling of groans and acclamations as would 
make the place unendurable. 

There is a man who, in infancy, lay in a cradle satin- 
lined. There is a man who was picked up, a foundling, 
on Boston Common. Here is a man who is coolly ob- 
serving this day's service, expecting no advantage, and 
caring for no advantage for himself ; while yonder 
is a man who has been for ten years in an awful confla- 
gration of evil habits, and he is a mere cinder of a 
destroyed nature, and he is wondering if there shall be 
in this service any escape or help for his immortal soul. 
Meeting you only once, perhaps, face to face, I strike 
hands with you in an earnest talk about your present 
condition, and your eternal well-being. St. Paul's ship 
at Melita went to pieces where two seas meet ; but we 
stand to-day at a point where a thousand seas converge^ 
and eternity alone can tell the issue of the hour. 

The hotels of this country, for beauty and elegance 
are not surpassed by the hotels in any other land ; bu, 
those that are most celebrated for brilliancy of tapestry 
and mirror cannot give to the guest any costly apart- 
ment, unless he can afford a parlor in addition to his 
lodging. The stranger, therefore, will generally find as- 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



37 



signed to him a room without any pictures, and perhaps 
any rocking chair ! He will find a box of matches on a 
bureau .and an old newspaper left by the previous occu- 
pant, and that will be about all the ornamentation. At 
seven o'clock in the evening, after having taken his re- 
past, he will look over his memorandum-book of the 
day's work ; he will write a letter to his home, and then 
a desperation will seize upon him to get out. You hear 
the great city thundering under your windows, and you 
say: " I must join that procession," and in ten minutes 
you have joined it. Where are you going? " Oh," you 
say,- "I haven't made up my mind yet." Better make 
up your mind before you start. Perhaps the very way 
you go now you will always go. Twenty years ago there 
were young men who came down the Astor House steps, 
and started out in a wrong direction, where they have 
been going ever since. 

" Well, where are you going V says one man. " I 
am going to the Academy to hear some music." Good. 
I would like to join you at the door. At the tap of the 
orchestral baton, all the gates of harmony and beauty 
will open before your soul. I congratulate you. Where 
are you going ? " Well," you say, " I am going up to 
see some advertised pictures." Good. 1 should like to 
go along with you and look over the same catalogue, and 
study with you Kensett, and Bierstadt, and Church, and 
Moran. Nothing more elevating than good pictures. 
Where are you going ? " Well," you say, " I am going 
up to the Young Men's Christian Association rooms." 
Good. You will find there gymnastics to strengthen 
the muscles, and books to improve the mind, and Chris- 
tian influence to save the soul. I wish every city in the 
United States had as fine a palace for its Young Men's 
Christian Association as New York has. Where are 



38 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



you going ? 4< Well," you say, " I am going to take a 
long walk up Broadway, and so turn around into the 
Bowery. I am going to study human life." Good. A 
walk through Broadway at eight o'clock at night is inter- 
esting, educating, fascinating, appalling, exhilarating to 
the last degree. Stop in front of that theater, and see 
who goes in. Stop at that saloon, and see who comes 
out. See the great tides of life surging backward and 
forward, and beating against the marble of the curbstone, 
and eddying down into the saloons. What is that mark 
on the face of that debauchee? It is the hectic flush of 
eternal death. What is that Woman's laughter ? It is 
the shriek of a lost soul. Who is that Christian man 
going along with a phial of anodyne to the dying pauper 
on Elm street? Who is that belated man on the way to 
a prayer-meeting ? Who is that city missionary going 
to take a box in which to bury a child '( Who are all 
these clusters of bright and beautiful faces? They are 
going to some interesting place of amusement. Who is 
that man going into the drug-store? That is the man 
who yesterday lost all his fortune on Wall street. He 
is going in for a dose of belladonna, and before morning 
it will make no difference to him whether stocks are up 
or down. I tell you that Broadway, between seven and 
twelve o'clock at night, between the Battery and Union- 
square, is an Austerlitz, a Gettysburg, a Waterloo, where 
kingdoms are lost or won, and three worlds mingle in the 
strife. 

I meet another coming down off the hotel steps, and I 
say: "Where are you going?" You say: "I am 
going with a merchant of New York who has promised 
to-night to show me the underground life of the city. I 
am his customer, and he is going to oblige me very 
much." Stop! A business house that tries to get or 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



39 



keep your custom through such a process as that, is not 
worthy of you. There are business establishments in 
our cities which have for years been sending to eternal 
destruction hundreds and thousands of merchants. They 
have a secret drawer in the counter, where money is kept, 
and the clerk goes and gets it when he wants to take 
these visitors to the city through the low slums of the 
place. Shall I mention the names of some of these great 
commercial establishments? I have them on my lip. 
Shall I % Perhaps I had better leave it to the young 
men who, in that process, have been destroyed themselves 
while they have been destroying others. I care not how 
high-sounding the name of a commercial establishment, 
if it proposes to get customers or to keep them by such 
a process as that ; drop their acquaintance. They will 
cheat you before you get through. They will send to 
yeu a style of goods different from that which you bought 
by sample. They will give you under- weight. There 
will be in the package half-a-dozen less pairs of sus- 
penders than you paid for. They will rob you. Oh, you 
feel in your pockets and say : " Is my money gone ?" 
They have robbed you of something for which pounds 
and shillings can never give you compensation. When 
one of these Western merchants has been dragged by one 
of these commercial agents through the slums of the 
city, he is not fit to go home. The mere memory of 
what he has seen will be moral pollution, unless he go 
on positive Christian errand. I think you had better 
let the city missionary and the police and the Christian 
reformer attend to the exploration of New York and 
underground life. You do not go to a small-pox hospital 
for the purpose of exploration. You do not go there, 
because you are afraid of the contagion. And yet, you 
go into the presence of a moral leprosy that is as much 



40 



STEANGBRS WARNED. 



more dangerous to you as the death of the soul is worse 
than the death of the bodj. I will undertake to say that 
nine-tenths of the men who have been ruined in our cities 
have been ruined by simply going to observe without 
any idea of participating. The fact is that underground 
city life is a filthy, fuming, reeking, pestiferous depth 
which may blast the eye that looks at it. In the Reign 
of Terror, in 1792, in Paris, people, escaping from the 
officers of the law, got into the sewers of the city, and 
crawled and walked through miles of that awful labyrinth, 
stifled with the atmosphere and almost dead, some of 
them, when they came out to the river Seine, where they 
washed themselves and again breathed the fresh air. 
But I have to tell you that a great many of the men who 
go on the work of exploration through the underground 
gutters of New York life never come out at any Seine 
river where they can wash off the pollution of the moral 
sewerage. Stranger, if one of the "drummers" of the 
city, as they are called — if one of the "drummers" pro- 
pose to take you and show you the " sights " of the town 
and underground New York, say to him: "Please, sir, 
what part do you propose to show me?" 

Sabbath morning comes. You wake up in the hotel. 
Yon have had a longer sleep than usual. You say: 
"Where am I ? a thousand miles from home ! I have no 
family to take to church to-day. My pastor will not expect 
my presence. I think I shall look over my accounts and 
study my memorandum-book. Then I will write a few 
business letters, and talk to that merchant who came in 
on the same train with me." Stop! you cannot afford to 
do it. 

"But," you say, "I am worth five hundred thousand 
dollars." You cannot afford to do it. You say: "I am 
wojjth a million dollars. " You cannot afford to do it. All 



STKANGEES WARNED. 



41 



you gain by breaking the Sabbath you will lose. You 
will lose one of three things : your intellect, your morals, 
or your property, and you cannot point in the whole earth 
to a single exception to this rule. God gives us six days 
and keeps one for himself. Now if we try to get the 
seventh, he will upset the work of all the other six. 

I remember going up Mount Washington, before the 
railroad had been built, to the Tip-Top House, and the 
guide would come around to our horses and stop us when 
we were crossing a very steep and dangerous place, and 
he would tighten the girdle of the horse, and straighten 
the saddle. And I have to tell you that this road of life 
is so steep and full of peril we must, at least one day in 
seven, stop and have the harness of life readjusted, and 
our souls re-equipped. The seven days of the week are 
like seven business partners, and you must give to each 
one his share, or the business will be broken up. God is 
so generous with us ; he has given you six days to his 
one. Now, here is a father who has seven apples, and he 
gives six to his greedy boy, proposing to keep one for 
himself. The greedy boy grabs for the other one and loses 
all the six. 

How few men there are who know how to keep the 
Lord's day away from home. A great many who are con- 
sistent on the banks of the St. Lawrence, or the Alabama, 
or the Mississippi, are not consistent when they get so 
far off as the East River. I repeat — though it is putting 
it on a low ground — you cannot financially afford to break 
the Lord's day. It is only another way of tearing up 
your government securities, and putting down the price 
of goods, and blowing up your store. I have friends who 
are all the time slicing off pieces of the Sabbath. They cut 
a little of the Sabbath off that end, and a little of the Sab- 
bath off this end. They do not keep the twenty-four hours. 



42 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



The Bible says: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it 
holy." I have good friends who are quite accustomed to 
leaving Albany by the midnight train on Saturday night, 
and getting home before church. Now, there may be 
occasions when it is right, but generally it is wrong. 
How if the train should run off the track into the North 
River ? I hope your friends will not send for me to preach 
your funeral sermon. It would be an awkward thing for 
me to stand up by your side and preach— you a Christian 
man killed on a rail-train traveling on a Sunday morn- 
ing. u Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. " 
What does that mean? It means twenty-four hours. 
A man owes you a dollar. You don't want h'lm to pay 
you ninety cents; you want the dollar. If God demands 
of us twenty-four hours out of the week, he means twenty- 
four hours and not nineteen. Oh, we want to keep vig- 
ilantly in this country the American Sabbath, and not 
have transplanted here the German or the French Sab- 
bath. If any of you have been in Paris you know that 
on Sabbath morning the vast population rush out toward 
the country with baskets and bundles, and toward night, 
they come back fagged out, cross, and intoxicated. May 
God preserve to us our glorious, quiet American Sab- 
baths. 

And so men come to the verge of city life and say : 
" Now we'll look off. Come, young man, don't be afraid. 
Come near, let's look off." He looks and looks, until, 
after a while, Satan comes and puts a hand on each of his 
shoulders and pushes him off. Society says it is evil 
proclivity on the part of that young man. Oh, no, he 
was simply an exploror, and sacrificed his life in dis- 
covery. A young man comes in from the country brag- 
ging that nothing can do him any harm. He knows 
about all the tricks of city life. "Why/' he says, "didn't 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



48 



I receive a circular in the country telling me that some- 
how they found out I was a sharp business man, and if I 
would only send a certain amount of money by mail or 
express, charges prepaid, they would send a package with 
which I could make a fortune in two months; but I didn't 
believe it. My neighbors did, but I didn't. Why, no ' 
man could take my money. I carry it in a pocket inside 
my vest. ~No man could take it. No man could cheat 
me at the faro table. Don't I know all about the 6 cue- 
box,' and the 'dealer's-box,' and the cards stuck together 
as though they were one, and when to hand in my 
cheques? Oh, they can't cheat me. I know what I am 
about." While, at the same time, that very moment, 
s\ich men are succumbing to the worst Satanic influences, 
in the simple fact that they are going to observe. Now, 
if a man or woman shall go down into a haunt of iniquity 
for the purpose of reforming men and women — if, as did 
John Howard, or Elizabeth Fry, or Tan Meter, they go 
down among the abandoned for the sake of saving souls — 
or as did Chalmers and Guthrie to see sin, that they 
might better combat it, then they shall be God-protected, 
and they will come out better than when they went in. 
But if you go on this work of exploration merely for 
the purpose of satisfying a morbid curiosity, I will take 
twenty per cent, off your moral character. O strangers, 
welcome to the great city. May you find Christ here, 
and not any physical or moral damage. Men coming 
from inland, from distant cities, have here found God and 
found him in our service. May that be your case 
now. Yon thought you were brought to this place merely 
for the purpose of sight-seeing. Perhaps God brought 
you to this roaring city for the purpose of working out 
your eternal salvation. Go back to your homes and tell 
them how you met Christ here — the loving, patient, par- 



44 



STRANGERS WARNED. 



doning, and sympathetic Christ. Who know*' but the 
city which has been the destruction of so many may be 
your eternal redemption? 

A good many years ago, Edward Stanley, the English 
commander, with his regiment, took a fort. The fort was 
manned by some three hundred Spaniards. Edward 
Stanley came close up to the fort, leading his men, when 
a Spaniard thrust at him with a spear, intending to 
destroy his life ; but Stanley caught hold of the spear, 
and the Spaniard in attempting to jerk the spear away 
from Stanley, lifted him up into the battlements. No 
sooner had Stanley taken his position on the battlements, 
than he swung his sword and his whole regiment leaped 
up after him and the fort was taken. So may it be with 
you, O stranger. The city influences which have destroyed 
so many and dashed them down for ever, shall be the 
means of lifting you up into the tower of God's mercy 
and strength, your soul more than conqueror through the 
grace of Him who hath promised an especial benediction 
to those who shall treat you well, saying : " I was a 
stranger and ye took me in." 



PEOPLE TO BE FEAKEB. 



45 



CHAPTER III. 

PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 

"Why hast thou then broken do wn her hedges, so that all they 
which pass by the way do pluck her? The boar out of the wood 
doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour i f ' — Psalms 
lxxx: 12, 13. 

By this homely but expressive figure, the text sets 
forth the bad influences which in olden time broke in 
upon God's heritage, as with swine's foot trampling, and 
as with swine's snout uprooting the vineyards of pros- 
perity. What was true then is true now. There have 
been enough trees of righteousness planted to overshadow 
the whole earth, had it not been for the axe-men who 
hew T ed them down. The temple of truth would long 
ago have been completed, had it not been for the icono- 
clasts who defaced the walls and battered down the pil- 
lars. The whole earth would have been an Eshcol of 
ripened clusters, had it not been that " the boar has 
wasted it and the wild beast of the field devoured it." 

I propose to point out to you those whom I consider 
to be the uprooting and devouring classes of society. 
First, the public criminals. You ought not to be surprised 
that these people make up a large portion in many 7 com- 
munities. The vast majority of the criminals who take 
ship from Europe come into our own port. In 1869, of 
the forty-nine thousand people who were incarcerated in 
the prisons of the country, thirty- two thousand were of 
foreign birth. Many of them were the very desperadoes 
of society, oozing into the slums of our cities, waiting 



4G 



for an opportunity to riot and steal and debauch, joining 
the large gang of American thugs and cut-throats. There 
are in this cluster of cities — New York, Jersey City, 
and Brooklyn — four thousand people whose entire busi- 
ness in life is to commit crime. That is as much their 
business as jurisprudence or medicine or merchandise is 
your business. To it they bring all their energies of 
body, mind, and soul, and they look upon the interreg- 
nums which they spend in prison as so much unfortunate 
loss of time, just as you look upon an attack of influenza 
or rheumatism which fastens you in the house for a few 
days. It is their lifetime business to pick pockets, and 
blow up safes, and shoplift, and ply the panel game, and 
they have as much pride of skill in their business as you 
have in yours when you upset the argument of an 
opposing council, or cure a gunshot fracture which other 
surgeons have given up, or foresee a turn in the market 
bo you buy goods just before they go up twenty per cent. 
It is their business to commit crime, and I do not sup- 
pose that once in a year the thought of the immorality 
strikes them. Added to these professional criminals, 
American and foreign, there is a large class of men who 
are more or less industrious in crime. In one year the 
police in this cluster of cities arrested ten thousand 
people for theft, and ten thousand for assault and battery, 
and fifty thousand for intoxication. Drunkenness is 
responsible for much of the theft, since it confuses a 
man's ideas of property, and he gets his hands on things 
that do not belong to him. Rum is responsible for 
much of the assault and battery, inspiring men to sudden 
bravery, which they must demonstrate though it be on 
the face cf the next gentleman. 

Seven million dollars' worth of property stolen in 
this cluster of cities in one year. You cannot, as good 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



47 



citizens, be independent of that fact. It will touch you/ 
pocket, since I have to give you the fact that these three 
cities pay seven million dollars' worth of taxes a year to 
arraign, try, and support the criminal population. You 
help to pay the board of every criminal, from the sneak 
thief that snatches a spool of cotton, up to some mar* 
who enacts a " Black Friday." More than that, it 
touches your heart in the moral depression of the com* 
munity. You might as well think to stand in a closel} 
confined room where there are fifty people and yet not 
breathe the vitiated air, as to stand in a community where 
there is such a great multitude of the depraved without 
somewhat being contaminated. What is the fire tha* 
burns your store down compared with the conflagration 
which consumes your morals? What is the theft of the 
gold and silver from your money safe compared with the 
theft of your children's virtue? 

We are all ready to arraign criminals. We shout at 
the top of our voice, " Stop thief!" and when the police 
get on the track we come out, hatless and in our slippers, 
and assist in the arrest. We come around the bawling 
ruffian and hustle him off to justice, and when he gets in 
prison, what do we do for him? With great gusto we 
put on the handcuffs and the hopples; but what prepara- 
tion are we making for the day when the handcuffs and 
the hopples come off ? Society seems to say to these 
criminals, " Villain, go in there and rot," when it ought 
to say, "You are an offender against the law, but we 
mean to give you an opportunity to repent; we mean to 
help you. Here are Bibles and tracts and Christian in- 
fluences. Christ died for you. Look, and live." 

Yast improvements have been made by introducing 
industries into the prison; but we want something more 
than hammers and shoe lasts to reclaim these people. 



48 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



Aye, we want more than sermons on the Sabbath day, 
Society must impress these men with the fact that it 
does not enjoy their suffering, and that it is attempt- 
ing to reform and elevate them. The majority of 
criminals suppose that society has a grudge against 
them, and they in turn have a grudge against society. 

They are harder in heart and more infuriate when they 
come out of jail than when they went in. Many of the 
people who go to prison go again and again and again. 
Some years ago, of fifteen hundred prisoners who during 
the year had been in Sing Sing, four hundred had been 
there before. In a house of correction in the country, 
where during a certain reach of time there had been five 
thousand people, more than three thousand had been there 
before. So, in one case the prison, and in the other case 
the house of correction, left them just as bad as they were 
before. The secretary of one of the benevolent societies 
of New York saw a lad fifteen years of age who had 
spent three years of his life in prison, and he said to the 
lad, " "What have they done for you to make you better?" 
"Well," replied the lad, " the first time I was brought 
up before the judge he said, ' You ought to be ashamed 
of yourself.' And then I committed a crime again, and 
I was brought up before the same judge, and he said, 
'You rascal!' And after a while I committed some 
other crime, and I was brought before the same judge, 
and he said, ' You ought to be hanged.' " That is all they 
had done for him in the way of reformation and salva- 
tion. "Oh," you say, " these people are incorrigible." 1 
suppose there are hundreds of persons this day lying in 
the prison bunks who would leap up at the prospect of 
reformation, if society would only allow them a way into 
decency and respectability. "Oh," you say, " I have no 
patience with these rogues." I ask you in reply, How 



PEOPLE TO BE FEAKED. 



49 



much better would you have been under the same circum- 
stances? Suppose jour mother had been a blasphemer 
and your father a sot, and you had started life with a 
body stuffed with evil proclivities, and you had spent 
much of your time in a cellar amid obscenities and curs- 
ing, and if at ten years of age you had been compelled 
to go out and steal, battered and banged at night if you 
came in without any spoils, and suppose your early man- 
hood and womanhood had been covered with rags and 
filth, and decent society had turned its back upon you, 
and left you to consort with vagabonds and wharf-rats — 
how much better would you have been? I have no sym- 
pathy with that executive clemency which would let 
crime run loose, or which would sit in the gallery of a 
court-room weeping because some hard-hearted wretch 
is brought to justice; but I do say that the safety and 
life of the community demand more potential influences 
in behalf of public offenders. 

Within live minutes' walk of where I now stand, there 
is a prison, enough to bringdown the wrath of Almighty 
Grod on this city of Brooklyn. It is the Raymond Street 
Jail. It would not be strange if the jail fever should 
start in that horrible hole, like that which raged in Eng- 
land during the session of the Black Assize, when three 
hundred perished — judges, jurors, constables, and law- 
yers. Alas, that our fair city should have such a pest- 
house. I understand the sheriff and the jail-keeper do 
all they can, under the circumstances, for the comfort of 
these people; but five and six people are crowded into a 
place where there ought to be but one or two. The air 
is like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. As the air 
swept through the wicket, it almost knocked me down. 
No sunlight. Young men who had committed their 
first crime crowded in among old offenders. I saw there 



50 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



one woman, with a child almost blind, who had been 
arrested for the crime of poverty, who was waiting until 
tho slow law could take her to the almshouse, where she 
rightfully belonged; but she was thrust in therewith her 
child amid the most abandoned wretches of the town. 
Many of the offenders in that prison sleeping on the 
floor, with nothing but a vermin-covered blanket over 
them. Those people crowded and wan and wasted and 
half suffocated and infuriated. I said to the men, "How 
do you stand it here?" "God knows," said one man, 
"we have to stand it." Oh, they will pay you when they 
get out. Where they burned down one house they will 
burn three. They will strike deeper the assassin's knife. 
They are this minute plotting worse burglaries. Ray- 
mond Street Jail is the best place I know of to manu- 
facture foot-pads, vagabonds, and cut-throats. Yale 
College is not so well calculated to make scholars, nor 
Harvard so well calculated to make scientists, nor Prince- 
ton so well calculated to make theologians, as Raymond 
Street Jail is calculated to make criminals. All that 
those men do not know of crime after they have been in 
that dungeon for some time, Satanic machination cannot 
teach them. Every hour that jail stands, it challenges 
the Lord Almighty to smite this city. I call upon the 
people to rise in their wrath and demand a reformation. 
I call upon the judges of our courts to expose that 
infamy. I call upon the Legislature of the State of New 
York, now in session, to examine and appease that out- 
rage on God and human society. I demand, in behalf 
of those incarcerated prisoners, fresh air and clear sun- 
light, and, in the name of him who had not where to lay 
his head, a couch to rest on at night. In the insuffer- 
able stench and sickening surroundings of that Raymond 
Street Jail there is nothing but disease for the body, 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



51 



idiocy for the mind, and death for the soul. Stifled air 
and darkness and vermin never turned a thief into an 
honest man. 

We want men like John Howard and Sir William 
Blackstone, and women like Elizabeth Fry, to do for the 
prisons of the United States what those people did in 
other days for the prisons of England. I thank God for 
what Isaac T. Hopper and Dr. Wines and Mr. Harris 
and scores of others have done in the way of prison 
reform; but we want something more radical before 
upon this city will come the blessing of him who said : 
" I was in prison, and ye came unto me." 

Again, in this class of uprooting and devouring popu- 
lation are untrustworthy officials. " Woe unto thee,- O 
land, when thy kings and child, and thy princes drink 
in the morning." It is a great calamity to a city when 
bad men get into public authority. Why was it 
that in New York there, was such unparalleled crime 
between 1866 and 1871 ? It was because the judges of 
police in that city, for the most part, were as corrupt as 
the vagabonds that came before them for trial. Those 
were the days of high carnival for election frauds, assas- 
sination and forgery. We had the " Whisky King," and 
the " Tammany King," and the "Erie Ring." There 
was one man during those years that got one hundred 
and twenty-eight thousand dollars in one year for serving 
the public. In a few years it was estimated that there 
were fifty millions of public treasure squandered. In 
those times the criminal had only to. wink to the judge, 
or his lawyer would wink for him, and the question was 
decided for the defendant. Of the eight thousand people 
arrested in that city in one year, only three thousand 
were punished. These little matters were " fixed up," 
while the interests of society were " fixed down." You 



52 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



know as well as I that a criminal who escapes only opens 
the door for other criminalities. When the two pick- 
pockets snatched the diamond pin from the Brooklyn 
gentleman in a Broadway stage, and the villains were 
arrested, and the trial was set down for the General Ses- 
sions, and then the trial never came, and never anything 
more was heard of the case, the public officials were only 
bidding higher for more crime. It is no compliment to 
public authority when we have in all the cities of the 
country, walking abroad, men and women notorious for 
criminality, unwhipped of justice. They are pointed 
out to you in the street day by day. There you find 
what are called the "fences," the men who stand between 
the thief and the honest man, sheltering the thief and 
at a great price handing over tlie goods to the owner to 
whom they belong. There yon will find those who are 
called the "skinners," the men who hover around Wall 
street, with great sleight of hand in bonds and stocks. 
There you find the funeral thieves, the people who go 
and sit down and mourn with families and pick their 
pockets. And there you find the "confidence men," 
who borrow money of you because they have a dead 
child in the house and want to bury it, when they never 
had a house nor a family; or they want to go to England 
and get a large property there, and they want you to pay 
their way, and they will send the money back by the 
very next mail. There are the "harbor thieves," the 
"shoplifters," the "pickpockets," famous all over the 
cities. Hundreds of them with their faces in the 
"Rogues' Gallery," yet doing nothing for the last five 
or ten years but defraud society and escape justice. 
When these people go unarrested and unpunished, it is 
putting a high premium upon vice, and saying to the 
young criminals of this country, "What a safe thing it is 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



53 



to be a great criminal." Let the law swoop upon them. 
Let it be known in this country that crime will have no 
quarter, that the detectives are after it, that the police 
club is being brandished, that the iron door of the prison 
is being opened, that the judge is ready to call on the 
case. Too great leniency to criminals is too great 
severity to society. When the President pardoned the 
wholesale dealer in obscene books he hindered the cru- 
sade against licentiousness; but when Governor Dix 
refused to let go Foster, the assassin, who was condemned 
to the gallows, he grandly vindicated the laws of God 
and the dignity of the State of New York. 

Again: among the uprooting and devouring classes in 
our midst are the idle. Of course, I do not refer to peo- 
ple who are getting old, or to the sick, or to those who 
cannot get work ; but I tell you to look out for those ath- 
letic men and women who will not work. When the 
French nobleman was asked why he kept busy when he 
had so large a property, he said, " I keep on engraving 
so I may not hang myself." I do not care who the man 
is, you cannot afford to be idle. It is from the idle classes 
that the criminal classes are made up. Character, like 
water, gets putrid if it stands still too long. Who can 
wonder that in this world, where there is so much to do, 
and all the hosts of earth and heaven and hell are plung- 
ing into the conflict, and angels are flying, and God 
is at work, and the universe is a-quake with the march- 
ing and counter-marching, that God lets his indignation 
fall upon a man who chooses idleness ? I have watched 
these do-nothings who spend their time stroking their 
beard, and retouching their toilette, and criticising 
industrious people, and pass their days and nights in bar- 
rooms and club houses, lounging and smoking and chew- 
ing and card-playing. They are not only useless, but they 



54 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



are dangerous. How hard it is for them to while away 

the hours? 

Alas! for them. If they do not know how to while away 
an hour, what will they do when they have all eternity 
on their hands ? These men for a while smoke the best 
cigars, and wear the best broadcloth, and move in the 
highest spheres; but I have noticed that very soon they 
come down to the prison, the almshouse, or stop at the 
gallows. 

The police stations of this cluster of cities furnish 
annually two hundred thousand lodgings. For the most 
part, these two hundred thousand lodgings are furnished 
to able-bodied men and women — people as able to work 
as you and I are. When they are received no longer at 
one police station, because they are "repeaters," they go 
to some other station, and so they keep moving around. 
They get their food at house doors, stealing what they 
can lay their hands on in the front basement while the 
servant is spreading the bread in the back basement. 
They will not work. Time and again, in the country 
districts, they have wanted hundreds and thousands of 
laborers. These men will not go. They do not want to 
work. I have tried them. I have set them to sawing 
wood in my cellar, to see whether they wanted to work. 
I offered to pay them well for it. I have heard the saw 
going for about three minutes, and then I went down, 
and lo, the wood, but no saw ! They are the pest of so- 
ciety, and they stand in the way of the Lord's poor, who 
ought to be helped, and must be helped, and will be 
helped. While there are thousands of industrious men 
who cannot get any work, these men who do not want 
uny work come in and make that plea. I am in favor of 
the restoration of the old-fashioned whipping-post for 
just this one class of men who will not work; sleeping at 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



55 



night at public expense in the station house; during the 
day, getting their food at your door-step. Imprison- 
ment does not scare them. They would like it. Black- 
well's Island or Sing Sing would be a comfortable home 
for them. They would have no objection to the alms- 
house, for they like thin soup, if they cannot get mock- 
turtle. I propose this for them: on one side of them put 
some healthy work; on the other side put a raw-hide, and 
let them take their choice. I like for that class of peo- 
ple the scant bill of fare that Paul wrote out for the 
Thessalonian loafers: "If any work not, neither should 
he eat." By what law of God or man is it right that 
you and I should toil day in and day out, until our hands 
are blistered and our arms ache and our brain gets numb? 
and then be called upon to support, what in the United 
States are about two million loafers! They are a very 
dangerous class. Let the public authorities keep their 
eyes on them. 

Again: among the uprooting classes I place the op- 
pressed poor. Poverty to a certain extent is chastening; 
hut after that, when it drives a man to the wall, and he 
hears his children cry in vain for bread, it sometimes 
makes him desperate. I think that there are thousands of 
honest men lacerated into vagabondism. There are men 
crushed under burdens for which they are not half paid. 
While there is no excuse for criminality, even in oppres- 
sion, I state it as a simple fact, that much of the scoum 
drelism of the community is consequent upon ill-treat 
ment. There are many men and women battered and 
bruised and stung until the hour of despair has come, and 
they stand with the ferocity of a wild beast which, pur- 
sued until it can run no longer, turns round, foaming 
and bleeding, to fight the hounds. 

There is a vast underground New York and Brooklyn 



56 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED- 



life that is appalling and shameful. It wallows and 
steams with putrefaction. You go down the stairs, 
which are wetand decayed with filth, and at the bottom you 
find the poor victims on the floor, cold, sick, three-fourths 
dead, slinking into a still darker corner under the gleam 
of the lantern of the police. There has not been a breath 
of fresh air in that room for five years, literally. The 
broken sewer empties its contents upon them, and they 
lie at night in the swimming filth. There they are, men, 
women, children; blacks, whites; Mary Magdalen with- 
out her repentance, and Lazarus without his God : 
These are " the dives " into which the pick-pockets and 
the thieves go, as well as a great many who would like a 
different life but cannot get it. These places are the sores 
of the city, which bleed perpetual corruption. They are 
the underlying volcano that threatens us with a Caraccas 
earthquake. It roils and roars and surges and heaves 
and rocks and blasphemes and dies. And there are only 
two outlets for it: the police court and the Potter's Field. 
In other words, they must either go to prison or to hell. 
Oh, you never sawit,you say. You never will see it until 
on the day when those staggering wretches shall come 
up in the light of the judgment throne, and while all 
hearts are being revealed God will ask you what you did 
to help them. 

There is another layer of poverty and destitution, not 
so squalid, but almost as helpless. You hear the inces- 
sant wailing for bread and clothes and fire. Their eyes 
are sunken. Their cheek-bones stand out. Their hands 
are damp with slow consumption. Their flesh is puffed 
up with dropsies. Their breath is like that of the char- 
nel-house. They hear the roar of the wheels of fashion 
over head, and the gay laughter of men and maidens, and 
wonder why God gave to others so much and to them so 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



57 



little. Some of them thrust into an infidelity like that of 
the poor German girl who, when told in the midst of her 
wretchedness that God was good, said; "No, no good 
God. Just look at me. No good God." 

In this cluster of cities, whose cry of want I this day 
interpret, there are said to be, as far as I can figure it up 
from the reports, about two hundred and ninety thous- 
and honest poor who are dependent upon individual, city, 
and state charities. If all their voices could come up at 
once, it would be a groan that would shake the founda- 
tions of the city, and brin^ all earth and heaven to the 
rescue. But, for the most part, it suffers unexpressed. 
It sits in silence, gnashing its teeth, and sucking the 
blood of its own arteries, waiting for the judgment day. 
Oh, I should not wonder if on that day it would be found 
out that some of us had some things that belonged to 
them; some extra garment which might have made them 
comfortable in these cold days; some bread thrust into 
the ash-barrel that might have appeased their hunger 
for a little while; some wasted candle or gas-jet that 
might have kindled up their darkness; some fresco on 
the ceiling that would have given them a roof; some 
jewel which, brought to that orphan girl in time, might 
have kept her from being crowded off the precipices of 
an unclean life; some New Testament that would have 
told them of him who " came to seek and save that 
which was lost." Oh, this wave of vagrancy and hunger 
and nakedness that dashes against our front door step; 
I wonder if you hear it and see it as much as I hear it 
and see it. This last week I have been almost frenzied 
with the perpetual cry for help from all classes and from 
all nations, knocking, knocking, ringing, ringing, until 
I dare not have more than one decent pair of shoes, nor 
more than one decent coat, nor more than one decent 



58 



PEOPLE TO BE FEARED. 



hat, lest in the last day it be found that I have some- 
thing that belongs to them, and Christ shall turn to me 
and say: "Inasmuch as ye did it not to these, ye did it 
not to me." If the roofs of all the houses of destitution 
could be lifted so we could look down into them just as 
God looks, whose nerves would be strong enough to 
stand it? And yet there they are. The forty-live thous- 
and sewing- women in these three cities, some of them in 
hunger and cold, working night after night, until some- 
times the blood spurts from nostril and lip. How well 
their grief was voiced by that despairing woman who 
stood by her invalid husband and invalid child, and said 
to the city missionary: "I am down-hearted. Every- 
thing's against us ; and then there are other things." 
" What other things?" said the city missionary. " Oh," 
she replied, " my sin." " What do you mean by that?" 
" Well," she said, " I never hear or see anything good. 
It's work from Monday morning to Saturday night, and 
then when Sunday comes I can't go out, and I walk the 
floor, and it makes me tremble to think that I have got to 
meet God. O sir, it's so hard for us. We have to work 
bo, and then we have so much trouble, and then we are 
getting along so poorly; and see this wee little thing 
growing weaker and weaker; and then to think we are 
not getting nearer to God, but floating away from him. 
O sir, I do wish I was ready to die." 

I should not wonder if they had a good deal better 
time than we in the future, to make up for the fact that 
they had such a bad time here. It would be juyt like 
Jesus to say: " Come up and take the highest seats. 
You suffered with me on earth; now be glorified with 
me in heaven.*" O thou weeping One of Bethany i O 
thou dying One of the cross! Have mercy on the starv^ 
ing, freezing, homeless poor of these great cities! 



VIA DOLOROSA, the street through which Christ is said to have borne 
the cross on his way to Calvary, after his trial, and ill treatment by 
the soldiers. 



PEOPLE TO EE FEARED. 



50 



I have preached this sermon for four or five practical 
reasons: Because I want you to know who are the up- 
rooting classes of society. Because I want you to be 
more discriminating in your charities. Because I want 
your hearts open with generosity, and your hands open 
with charity. Because I want you to be made the sworn 
friends of all city evangelization, and all newsboys' 
lodging houses, and all Howard Missions, and Children's 
Aid Societies. Aye, I have preached it because I want 
you this week to send to the Dorcas Society all the cast- 
off clothing, that under the skillful -manipulation of our 
wives and mothers and sisters and daughters, these gar- 
ments may be fitted on the cold, bare feet, and on the 
shivering limbs of the destitute. I should not wonder if 
that hat that you give should come back a jeweled coronet, 
of if that garment that you this week hand out from 
your wardrobe should mysteriously be whitened, and 
somehow wrought into the Savior's own robe, so in the 
last day he would run his hand over it, and say: " I was 
naked, and ye clothed me." That would be putting your 
garments to glorious uses. 

But more than that, I have preached the sermon be- 
cause I thought in the contrast you would see how very 
kindly God had dealt with you, and I thought that 
thousands of you would go to-day to your comfortable 
homes, and sit at your well-filled tables, and at the warm 
registers, and look at the round faces of your children, 
and that then you would burst into tears at the review 
of God's goodness to you, and that you would go to your 
room this afternoon and lock the door, and kneel down, 
and say: "O Lord, I have been an ingrate; make me 
thy child. O Lord, there are so many hungry and un- 
clad and unsheltered to-day, I thank thee that all my life 
thou hast taken such go^ \ care of me. O Lord, there 



CO 



People to be feared. 



are so many sick and crippled children to-day, I thank 
thee mine are well, some of them on earth, some of them 
in heaven. Thy goodness, O Lord, breaks me down. 
Take me once, and forever. Sprinkled as I was many 
years ago at the altar, while my mother held me, now I 
consecrate my soul to thee in a holier baptism of repent- 
ing tears. 

" For sinners, Lord, Thou cam'st to bleed, 
And I'm a sinner vile indeed ; 
Lord, I believe Thy grace is free, 
O magnify that grace in me. " 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



61 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 

" And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the 
fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and 
made the children of Israel drink of it."— Exodus xxxii: 20. 

People will have a god of some kind, and they prefer 
one of their own making. Here come the Israelites, 
breaking off their golden earrings, the men as well as 
the women, for in those times there were masculine as 
well as feminine decorations. Where did they get these 
beautiful gold earrings, coming up as they did from the 
desert? Oh, they ''borrowed" them of the Egyptians 
when they left Egypt. These earrings are piled up into 
a pyramid of glittering beauty. u Any more earrings 
to bring !" says Aaron. None. Fire is kindled ; the 
earrings are melted and poured into a mold, not of an 
eagle or a war charger, but of a calf ; the gold cools off; 
the mold is taken away, and the idol is set up on its 
four legs. An altar is built in front of the shining calf. 
Then the people throw up their arms, and gyrate, and 
shriek, and dance mightily, and worship. Moses has 
been six weeks on Mount Sinai, a-nd he comes back and 
hears the howling and sees the dancing of these golden- 
calf fanatics, and he loses his patience, and he takes the 
two plates of stone on which were written the Ten Com- 
mandments and flings them so hard against a rock that 
they split all to pieces. When a man gets mad he is 
very apt to break all the Ten Commandments ! Moses 
wishes in and he takes this "calf-god and throw's it into a 



62 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN 



hot fire, until it is melted all out of shape, and then 
pulverizes it — not by the modern appliance of nitro- 
muriatic acid, but by the ancient appliance of nitre, or 
by the old-fashioned file. He makes for the people a 
most nauseating draught. He takes this pulverized 
golden calf and throws it in the only brook which is ac- 
cessible, and the people are compelled. to drink of that 
brook or not drink at all. But they did not drink all the 
glittering stuff thrown on the surface. Some of it flows 
on down the surface of the brook to the river, and then 
flows on down the river to the sea, and the sea takes it 
up and bears it to the mouth of all the rivers, and when 
the tides set back, the remains of this golden calf are car- 
ried up into the Hudson, and the East river, and the 
Thames, and the Clyde, and the Tiber, and- men go out 
and they skim the glittering surface, and they bring it 
ashore and they make another golden calf, and California 
and Australia break off their golden earrings to augment 
the pile, and in the fires of financial excitement and 
struggle all these things are melted together, and while 
we stand looking and wondering what will come of it, 
lo! we find that the golden calf of Israelitish worship 
has become the golden calf of European and American 
worship. 

I shall describe to you the god spoken of in the text, 
his temple, his altar of sacrifice, the music that is made 
in his temple, and then the final breaking up of the whole 
congregation of idolaters. 

Put aside this curtain and you see the golden calf of 
modern idolatry. It is not like. other idols, made out of 
stocks or stone, but it has an 'ear so sensitive that it can 
hear the whispers on Wall street and Third street and 
State street, and the footfalls in the Bank of England, 
and the flutter of a Frenchman's heart on the Bourse. 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



03 



It has &n eye so keen that it can see the rust on the farm 
of Michigan wheat and the insect in the Maryland 
peach-orchard, and the trampled grain under the hoot' of 
the .Russian war charger. It is so mighty that it swings 
any way it will the world's shipping. It has its foot on 
all the merchantmen and the steamers. It started the 
American Civil War, and under God stopped it, and it 
decided the Turko-Russian contest. One broker in 
September, 1869, in New York, shouted, "One hundred 
and sixty for a million!" and the whole continent shiv- 
ered. This golden calf of the text has its right front 
foot in New York, its left front foot in Chicago, its right 
back foot in Charleston, its left back foot in New Orleans, 
and when it shakes itself it shakes the world. Oh! this 
is a mighty god — the golden calf of the world's worship. 

But every god must have its temple, and this golden 
calf of the text is no exception. Its temple is vaster 
than St. Paul's of the English, and St. Peter's of the 
Italians, and the Alhambra of the Spaniards, and the 
Parthenon of the Greeks, and the Mahal Taj of the 
Hindoos, and all the other cathedrals put together. Its 
pillars are grooved and fluted with gold, and its ribbed 
arches are hovering gold, and its chandeliers are descend- 
ing gold, and its floors are tesselated gold, and its vaults 
are crowded heaps of gold, and its spires and domes are 
soaring gold, and its organ pipes are resounding gold, 
and its pedals are tramping gold, and its stops pulled 
out are flashing gold, while standing at the head of the 
temple, as the presiding deity, are the hoofs and shoul- 
ders and eyes and ears and nostrils of the calf of gold. 

Further: every god must have not only its temple, but 
its altar of sacrifice, and this golden calf of the text is 
no exception. Its altar is not made out of stone as other 
altars, but out of counting-room desks and fire-proof 



64 



THE WOKSI1U' OF THE UOLDEJS CALF. 



safes, and it is a broad, a long, a high altar. The vic- 
tims sacrificed on it are the Swartouts, and the Ketchams, 
and the Fisks, and the Tweeds, and the Mortons, and ten 
thousand other people who are slain before this golden 
calf. What does this god care about the groans and 
struggles of the victims before it? With cold, metallic 
eye it looks on and jet lets them suffer. Oh! heaven 
and earth, what an altar! what a sacrifice of body, mind, 
and soul! The physical health of a great multitude is 
flung on this sacrificial altar. They cannot sleep, and 
they take chloral and morphine and intoxicants. Some 
of them struggle in a nightmare of stocks, and at one 
o'clock in the morning suddenly rise up shouting: " A 
thousand shares of New York Central — one hundred 
and eight and a-half ! take it!" until the whole family is 
affrighted, and the speculators fall back on their pillows 
and sleep until they are awakened again by a " corner 99 
in the Pacific Mail, or a sudden "rise" of Rock Island. 
Their nerves gone, their digestion gone, their brain 
gone, they die. The clergyman comes in and reads the 
funeral service: "Blessed are the dead who die in the 
Lord." Mistake. They did not " die in the Lord;" the 
golden calf kicked them! 

The trouble is, when men sacrifice themselves on this 
altar suggested in the text, they not only sacrifice them- 
selves, but they sacrifice their families. If a man by an 
ill course is determined to go to perdition, I suppose 
you will have to let him go; but he puts his wife and 
children in an equipage that is the amazement of the 
avenues, and the driver lashes the horses into two whirl- 
winds, and the spokes flash in the- sun, and the golden 
headgear of the harness gleams, until Black Calamity 
takes the bits of the horses and stops them, and shouts 
to the luxuriant occupants of the equipage: "Get out!" 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



65 



They get out. They get down. That husband and 
father flung his family so hard they never got up again. 
There was the mark on them for life — the mark of a 
split hoof — the death-dealing hoof of the golden calf. 

Solomon offered in one sacrifice, on one occasion, 
twenty-two thousand oxen and one hundred and twenty 
thousand sheep; bat that was a tame sacrifice compared 
with the multitude of men who are sacrificing them- 
selves on this altar of the golden calf, and sacrificing 
their families with them. The soldiers of General 
Havelock, in India, walked literally ankle deep in the 
blood of the "house of massacre," where two hun- 
dred women and children had been slain by the Sepoys; 
but the blood around about this altar of the golden calf 
flows up to the knee, flows to the girdle, flows to the 
.shoulder, flows to the lip. Great God of heaven and 
earth, have mercy! The golden calf has none. 

Still the degrading worship goes on, and the devotees 
kneel and kiss the dust, and count their golden beads, 
and cross themselves with the blood of their own sacri- 
fice. The music rolls on under the arches; it is made 
of clinking silver and clinking gold, and the rattling 
specie of the banks and brokers' shops, and the voices 
of all the exchanges. The soprano of the worship is 
carried by the timid voices of men who have just begun 
to speculate; while the deep bass rolls out from those 
who for ten years of iniquity have been doubly damned. 
Chorus of voices rejoicing over what they have made. 
Chorus of voices wailing over what they have lost. 
This temple of which I speak stands open day and 
night, and there is the glittering god with his four feet 
on broken hearts, and there is the smoking altar of sac- 
rifice, new victims every moment on it, and there are 
the kneeling devotees; and the doxology of the worship 



66 THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CAUT. 

rolls on, while Death stands with mouldy and skeleton 
arm beating time for the chorus — " More! more! more!" 

Some people are very much surprised at the actions 
of folk in the Stock Exchange, New York. Indeed, it 
is a scene sometimes that paralyzes description, and is 
beyond the imagination of any one who has never looked 
in. What snapping of finger and thumb and wild ges- 
ticulation, and raving like hyenas, and stamping like 
buffaloes, and swaying to and fro, and jostling and run- 
ning one upon another, and deafening uproar, until the 
president of the Exchange strikes with his mallet four 
or five times, crying, "Order! order!" and the aston- 
ished spectator goes out into the fresh air feeling that he 
has escaped from pandemonium. What does it all 
mean? I will tell you what it means. The devotees of 
every heathen temple cut themselves to pieces, and yell 
and gyrate. This vociferation and gyration of the Stock 
Exchange is all appropriate. This is the worship of the 
golden calf. 

But my text suggests that this worship must be broken 
up, as the behavior of Moses in my text indicated. 
There are those who say that this golden calf spoken of 
in my text was liollow, and merely plated with gold; 
otherwise, they say, Moses could not have carried it. I 
do not know that ; but somehow, perhaps by the assist- 
ance of his friends, he takes up this golden calf, which 
is an open insult to God and man, and throws it into the 
fire, and it is melted, and then it comes out and is cooled 
off, and by some chemical appliance, or by an old-fash- 
ioned file, it is pulverized, and it is thrown into the 
brook, and, as a punishment, the people are compelled 
to drink the nauseating stuff. So, my hearers, you may 
depend upon it that God will burn and he "nil grind to 
pieces the golden calf of modern idolatry, and he will 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



67 



compel the people in their agony to drink it. If not 
before, it will be so on the last day. I know not where 
the fire will begin, whether at the " Battery " or Central 
Park, whether at Fnlton Ferry or at Bush wick, whether 
at Shoreditch, London, or West End; but it will be a very 
hot blaze. All the Government securities of the United 
States and Great Britain will curl up in the first blast. 
AU the money safes and depositing vaults will melt 
under the first touch. The sea will burn like tinder, 
and the shipping will be abandoned forever. The melt- 
ing gold in the broker's window will burst through the 
melted window-glass and into the street; but the flying 
population will not stop to scoop it up. The cry of 
"Fire" from the mountain will be answered by the cry 
of "Fire" in the plain. The conflagration will burn 
out from the continent toward the sea, and then burn in 
from the sea toward the land. New York and London 
with one cut of the red scythe of destruction will go 
down. Twenty-five thousand miles of conflagration! 
The earth will wrap itself round and round in shroud of 
flame, and lie down to perish. What then will become 
of your golden calf? "Who then so poor as to worship 
it ? Melted, or between the upper and the nether mill- 
stone of falling mountains ground to powder. Dagon 
down. Moloch down. Juggernaut down. Golden calf 
down. 

But, my friends, every day is a day of judgment, and 
God is all the time grinding to pieces the golden calf. 
Merchants of New York and London, what is the char- 
acteristic of this time in which we live? "Bad," you 
say. Professional men, what is the characteristic of the 
times in which we live ? "Bad," you say. Though I 
should be in a minority of one, I venture the opinion 
that these are the best times we have had in fifteen 



68 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN OALF. 



years, for the reason that God is teaching the world, as 
never before, that old-fashioned honesty is the only thing 
that will stand. In the past few months we have learned 
as never before that forgeries will not pay; that the 
watering of stock will not pay; that the spending of fifty 
thousand dollars on country seats and a palatial city resi- 
dence, when there are only thirty thousand dollars income, 
will not pay; that the appropriation of trust funds to our 
own private speculation will not pay. We had a great na- 
tional tumor, in the shape of fictitious prosperity. We 
called it national enlargement; instead of calling it en- 
largement, we might better have called it a swelling. It 
has been a tumor, and God is cutting it out — has cut it 
out, and the nation will get well and will come back to the 
principles of our fathers and grandfathers when twice 
three made six instead of sixty, and when the apples at 
the bottom of the barrel were just as good as the apples 
on the top of the barrel, and a silk handkerchief was not 
half cotton, and a man who wore a five-dollar coat paid 
for was more honored than a man who wore a fifty-dollar 
coat not paid for. 

The golden calf of our day, like the one of the text, is 
very apt to be made out of borrowed gold. These 
Israelites of the text borrowed the earrings of the Egyp- 
tians, and then melted them into a god. That is the 
way the golden calf is made nowadays. A great many 
housekeepers, not paying for the articles they get, bor- 
row of the grocer and the baker and the butcher and the 
dry-goods seller. Then the retailer borrows of the whole- 
sale dealer. Then the wholesale dealer borrows of the 
capitalist, and we borrow, and borrow, and borrow, until 
the community is divided into two classes, those who 
borrow and those who are borrowed of; and after a 
while the capitalist wants his money and he rushes upon 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



69 



the wholesale dealer, and the wholesale dealer wants his 
money and he rashes upon the retailer, and the retailer 
wants his money and he rushes upon the consumer, and 
we all go down together. There is many a man in this 
day who rides in a carriage and owes the blacksmith for 
the tire, and the wheelwright for the wheel, and the 
trimmer for the curtain, and the driver for unpaid wages, 
and the harness-maker for the bridle, and the furrier for 
the robe, while from the tip of the carriage tongue clear 
back to the tip of the camel's-hair shawl fluttering out 
of the back of the vehicle, everything is paid for by notes 
that have been three times renewed. 

I tell you, sirs, that in this country we will never get 
things right until we stop borrowing, and pay as we go. 
It is this temptation to borrow, and borrow, and borrow, 
that keeps the people everlastingly praying to the golden 
calf for help, and just at the minute they expect the help 
the golden calf treads on them. The judgments of God, 
like Moses in the text, will rush in and break up this 
worship; and I say, let the work go on until every man 
shall learn to speak truth with his neighbor, and those 
who make engagements shall feel themselves bound to 
keep them, and when a man who will not repent of his 
business iniquity, but goes on wishing to satiate his can- 
nibal appetite by devouring widows' houses, shall, by 
the law of the land, be compelled to exchange the brown 
,*tone front on Madison Avenue or Beacon Hill for New- 
gate or Sing Sing. Let the golden calf perish ! 

But, my friends, if we have made this world our god, 
when we come to die we will see our idol demolished. 
How much of this world are you going to take with you 
into the next ? Will you have two pockets — one in each 
side of your shroud? Will you cushion your coffin with 
bonds and mortgages and certificates of stock? Ah! na 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



'i'he ferry-boat that crosses this J ordan takes no baggage 
—nothing heavier than a spirit. You may, perhaps, 
take five hundred dollars with you two or three miles, 
in the shape of funeral trappings, to Greenwood, but you 
will have to leave them there. It would not be safe for 
you to lie down there with a gold watch or a diamond 
ring; it would be a temptation to the pillagers. Ah, 
my friends ! if we have made this world our god, when 
we die we will see our idol ground to pieces by our 
pillow, and we will have to drink it in bitter regrets for 
the wasted opportunities of a lifetime. Soon we will be 
gone. O! this is a fleeting world, it is a dying world- 
A man who had worshiped it all his days in his dying 
moment described himself when he said: "Fool! fool* 
fool!" 

I want you to change temples, and to give up the wor- 
ship of this unsatisfying and cruel god for the service of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. Here is the gold that will never 
crumble. Here are securities that will never fail. Here 
are banks that will never break. Here is an altar on 
which there has been one sacrifice once for all. Here is 
a God who will comfort you when you are in trouble, 
and soothe you when you are sick, and save you when 
you die. When your parents have breathed their last, 
and the old, wrinkled, and trembling hands can no more 
be put upon your head for a blessing, he will be to you 
father and mother both, giving you the defense of the one 
and the comfort of the other ; and when your children 
go away from you, the sweet darlings, you will not kiss 
them good-by for ever. He only wants to hold them for 
you a little while. He will give them back to you again, 
and he will have them all waiting for you at the gates 
of eternal welcome. Oh! what a God he is! He will 
allow you to come so close this morning that you can 



THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF. 



71 



put your arms around his neck, while he in response 
will put his arms around your neck, and all the windows 
of heaven will be hoisted to let the redeemed look out 
and see the spectacle of a rejoicing Father and a returned 
prodigal locked in glorious embrace. Quit worshiping 
the golden calf, and bow this day before him in whose 
presence we must all appear when the world has turned 
to ashes and the scorched parchment of the sky shall be 
rolled together like an historic scroll. 



72 



DBY-GOOD8 &BLIQIOV. 



CHAPTER V. 

DRY-GOODS RELIGION. 

"Whose adorning, let it not be. . . .putting on of apparel." — 

1 Peter iii : 3. 

My subject is dry goods religion. That we should all 
be clad, is proved by the opening of the first wardrobe in 
Paradise, with its apparel of dark green. That we should 
all, as far as our means allow us, be beautifully and grace- 
fully appareled, is proved by the fact that God never 
made a wave but he gilded it with golden sunbeams, or 
a tree but he garlanded it with blossoms, or a sky but 
he studded it with stars, or allowed even the smoke of a 
furnace to ascend but he columned and turreted and 
domed and scrolled it into outlines of indescribable 
gracefulness. When I see the apple-orchards of the 
spring and the pageantry of the autumnal forests, I come 
to the conclusion that if nature ever does join the Church, 
while she may be a Quaker in the silence of her worship, 
she never will be a Quaker in the style of her dress. 
Why the notches of a fern leaf, or the stamen of a water 
lily? Why, when the day departs, does it let the folding - 
doors of heaven stay open so long, when it might go in 
so quickly? One summer morning I saw an army of a 
million spears, each one adorned with a diamond of the 
.first water — I mean the grass with the dew on it. When 
the prodigal came home his father not only put a coat 
on his back, but jewelry on his hand. Christ wore a 
beard. Paul, the bachelor apostle, not afflicted with any 
sentimentality, admired the arrangement of a woman'* 



iXRY-GOODS RELIGION. 



hair when he said, in his epistle, " if a woman have long 
hair, it; is a glory unto her." There will be fashion in 
heaven as on earth, b ; it will be a different kind of 
fashion. I ! : will decide the color of the dress ; and the 
population of that country, by a beautiful law, will wear 
white. I say these things as a background to my ser- 
mon, to show you that I have no prim, precise, prudish, 
or cast-iron theories on the subject of human apparel. 
But the goddess of fashion has set up her throne in this 
country and at the sound of the timbrels we are all ex- 
pected to fall down and worship. The old and new tes- 
tament of her bible are Madame Demorestfs Magazine 
and Harper's Bazar. Her altars smoke with the sac- 
rifice of the bodies, minds, and souls of ten thousand vic- 
tims. In her temple four people stand in the organ-loft, 
and from them there comes down a cold drizzle of music, 
freezing on the ears of her worshipers. This goddess 
of fashion has become a rival of the Lord of heaven and 
earth, and it is high time that we unlimbered our bat- 
teries against this idolatry. When I come to count the 
victims of fashion I find as many masculine as feminine. 
Men make an easy tirade against woman, as though she 
"were the chief worshiper at this idolatrous shrine, and 
no doubt some men in the more conspicuous part of the 
pew have already cast glances at the more retired part 
of the pew, their look a prophecy of a generous distribu- 
My sermon shall be as appropriate for one end of the 
pew as for the other. 

Men are as much the idolators of fashion as women, 
but they sacrifice on a different part of the altar. With 
men, the fashion goes to cigars and club-rooms arid yacht- 
ing parties and wine suppers. In the United States the 
men chew up and smoke one hundred millions of dol- 



n 



DRY-GOODS *ELA.TO». 



lars' worth of tobacco every yeai. That is their fashion. 
In London, not long ago, a man died who started in life 
with seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but he ate 
it all up in gluttonies, sending his agents to all parts of 
the earth for some rare delicacy for the palate, some- 
times one plate of food costing him three or four hun- 
dred dollars. He ate up his whole fortune, and had only 
one guinea left; with that he bought a woodcock, and 
had it dressed in the very best style, ate it, gave two 
hours for digestion, then walked out on Westminster 
Bridge and threw himself into the Thames, and died, 
doing on a large scale what you and I have often seen 
done on a small scale. But men do not abstain from 
millinery and elaboration of skirt through any superi- 
ority of humility. It is only because such appendages 
would be a blockade to business. What would sashes 
and trains three and a half yards long do in a stock mar- 
ket? And yet men are the disciples of fashion just as 
much as women. Some of them wear boots so tight they 
can hardly walk in the paths of righteousness. And 
there are men who buy expensive suits of clothes and 
never pay for them, and who go through the streets in 
great stripes of color like animated checker-boards. Then 
there are multitudes of men who, not satisfied with the 
bodies the Lord gave them, are padded so that their 
shoulders shall be square, carrying around a small cot. 
ton plantation. And I understand a great many of them 
now paint their eyebrows and their lips, and I have heard 
from good authority that there are multitudes of men in 
Brooklyn and New York — men — things have got to such 
an awful pass — multitudes of men wearing corsets! I 
say these things because I want to show you that I am 
impartial in my discourse, and that both sexes, in the 
language of the Surrogate's office, shall "share and share 



DRY- GOODS RELIGION. 



75 



alike." As God may help me, I shall show you what 
are the destroying and deathful influences of inordinate 
fashion. 

The first baleful influence I notice is in fraud, ill- 
imitable and ghastly. Do you know that Arnold of 
the Revolution proposed to sell his country in order to 
get money to support his wife's wardrobe? I declare 
here before God and this people that the effort to keep 
up expensive establishments in this country *'s sending 
more business men to temporal perdition than all other 
causes combined. What was it that sent Gilman to the 
penitentiary, and Philadelphia Morton to the watering 
of stocks, and the life insurance presidents to perjured 
statements about their assets, and has completely upset 
our American finances? What was it that overthrew 
Belknap, the United States Secretary at Washington, the 
crash of whose fall shook the continent? But why should 
I go to these famous defaultings to show what men will 
do in .order to keep up great home style and expensive 
wardrobe, when you and I know scores of men who are 
put to their wit's end, and are lashed from January to 
December in the attempt. Our Washington politicians 
may theorize until the expiration of their terms of office 
as to the best way of improving our monetary condition 
fn this country; it will be of no use, and things will be 
no better until we learn to put on our heads, and backs, 
and feet, and hands no more than we can pay for. 

There are clerks in stores and banks on limited sal- 
aries, who, in the vain attempt to keep the wardrobe of 
their family as showy as other folk's wardrobes, are 
dying of muffs, and diamonds, and camel's hair shawls, 
and high hats, and they have nothing left except what 
they give to cigars and wine suppers, and they die before 
their time and they will expect us ministers to preach 



76 



£>BY-GOUDS RELIGION. 



about them as though they were the victims of early 
piety, and after a high-class funeral, with silver handles 
at the side of their coffin, of extraordinary brightness, it 
will be found out that the undertaker is cheated out of 
his legitimate expenses! Do not send to me to preach 
the funeral sermon of a man who dies like that. I will 
blurt out the whole truth, and tell that he was strangled 
to death by his wife's ribbons! The country is dressed 
to death. You are not surprised to find that the put- 
ting up of one public building in New York cost mil- 
lions of dollars more than it ought to have cost, when 
you find that the man who gave out the contracts paid 
more than five thousand dollars for his daughter's wed- 
ding dress. Cashmeres of a thousand dollars each are 
not rare on Broadway. It is estimated that there are 
five thousand women in these two cities who have ex- 
pended on their personal array two thousand dollars a 
year. 

What are men to do in order to keep up such home 
wardrobes? Steal — that is the only respectable thing 
they can do! During the last fifteen years there have 
been innumerable fine businesses shipwrecked on the 
wardrobe. The temptation comes in this way: A man 
thinks more of his family than of all the world outside, 
and if they spend the evening in describing to him the 
superior wardrobe of the family across the street, that 
they cannot bear the sight of, the man is thrown on his 
gallantry and his pride of family, and, without translat- 
ing his feelings into plain language, he goes into extor- 
tion and issuing of false stock, and skillful penmanship 
in writing somebody else's name at the foot of a prom- 
issory note; and they all go down together — the husband 
to the prison, the wife to the sewing machine, the chil- 
dren to be taken care of by those who were called poor 



"DRY-GOODS RELIGION. 



77 



relations. O! for some new Shakespeare to arise and 
write the tragedy of human clothes. 

Act the first of the tragedy. — A plain but beautiful 
home. Enter, the newly-married pair. Enter, sim- 
plicity of manner and behavior. Enter, as much hap- 
piness as is ever found in one home. 

Act the second. — Discontent with the humble home. 
Enter, envy. Enter, jealousy. Enter, desire of display. 

Act the third. — Enlargement of expenses. Enter, all 
the queenly dressmakers. Enter, the French milliners. 

Act the fourth. — The tip-top of society. Enter, princes 
and princesses of New York life. Enter, magnificent 
plate and equipage. Enter, everything splendid. 

Act the fifth, and last. — Winding up of the scene. 
Enter, the assignee. Enter, the sheriff. Enter, the 
creditors. Enter, humiliation. Enter, the wrath of God. 
Enter, the contempt of society. Enter, death. Now, 
let the silk curtain drop on the stage. The farce is 
ended, and the lights are out. 

Will you forgive me if I say in tersest shape possible 
that some of the men in this country have to forge and 
to perjure and to swindle to pay for their wives' dresses? 
I will say it, whether you forgive me or not ! 

Again, inordinate fashion is the foe of all Christian 
alms-giving. Men and women put so much in personal 
display that they often have nothing for God and the 
cause of suffering humanity. A Christian man cracking 
his Palais Royal glove across the back by shutting up 
his hand to hide the one cent he puts into the poor-box! * 
A Christian woman, at the story of the Hottentots, cry- 
ing copious tears into a twenty-five dollar handkerchief, 
and then giving a two-cent piece to the collection, 
thrusting it down under the bills so people will not 
know but it was a ten-dollar gold piece! One hundred 



78 



DRY— GOODS RELIGION. 



dollars for incense to fashion. Two cents for God. God 
gives us ninety cents out of every dollar. The other ten 
cents by command of His Bible belong to Him. Is not 
God liberal according to this tithing system laid down 
in the Old Testament — is not God liberal in giving us 
ninety cents out of a dollar, when he takes but ten? We 
do not like that. We want to have ninety-nine cents for 
ourselves and one for God. 

Now, I would a great deal rather steal ten cents from 
you than God. I think one reason why a great many 
people do not get along in worldly accumulation faster 
is because they do not observe this divine rule. God 
says: " Well, if that man is not satisfied with ninety 
cents of a dollar, then I will take the whole dollar, and I 
will give it to the man or woman who is honest with 
me." The greatest obstacle to charity in the Christian 
church to-day is the fact that men expend so much 
money on their table, and women so much on their 
dress, they have got nothing left for the work of God and 
the world's betterment. In my first settlement at Belle- 
ville, New Jersey, the cause of missions was being pre- 
sented one Sabbath, and a plea for the charity of the 
people was being made, when an old Christian man in 
the audience lost his balance, and said right out in the 
midst of the sermon: "Mr. Talmage, how are we to 
give liberally to these grand and glorious causes when 
our families dress as they do?" I did not answer that 
question. It was the only time in my life when I had 
nothing to say! 

Again, inordinate fashion is distraction to public wor- 
ship. You know very well there are a good many peo- 
ple who come to church just as they go to the races, to 
see who will come out first. What a flutter it makes in 
church when some woman with extraordinary display of 



DKY— GOODS RELIGION. 



79 



fashion comes in. "What a love of a bonnet!'' says 
some one. " What a perfect fright!" say five hundred. 
For the most merciless critics in the world are fashion x 
critics. Men and women with souls to be saved passing 
the hour in wondering where that man got his cravat, or 
what store that woman patronizes. In many of our 
churches the preliminary exercises are taken up with the 
discussion of wardrobes. It is pitiable. Is it not won- 
derful that the Lord does not strike the meeting-houses 
with lightning! What distraction of public worship! 
Dying men and women, whose bodies are soon to be 
turned into dust, yet before three worlds strutting like 
peacocks, the awful question of the soul's destiny sub- 
merged by the question of Creedmore polonaise, and 
navy blue velvet and long fan train skirt, long enough 
to drag up the church aisle, the husband's store, office, 
shop, factory, fortune, and the admiration of half the 
people in the building. Men and women come late to 
church to show their clothes. People sitting down in a 
pew or taking up a hymn book, all absorbed at the same 
time in personal array, to sing: 

" Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings. 

Thy better portion trace ; 
Rise from transitory things, 

Toward heaven, thy native place!" 

I adopt the Episcopalian prayer and say: " Good Lord 
deliver us !" 

Insatiate fashion also belittles the intellect. Our 
minds are enlarged or they dwindle just in proportion 
to the importance of the subject on which we constantly 
dwell. Can you imagine anything more dwarfing to 
the human intellect than the study of fashion? I see 
men on the street who, judging from their elaboration, 
I think must have taken two hours to arrange their 



so 



DET— GOODS RELIGION. 



apparel. After a few years of that kind of absorption, 
which one of McAllister's magnifying glasses will be 
powerful enough to make the man's character visible? . 
What will be left of a woman's intellect after giving 
years and years to the discussion of such questions as 
the comparison between knife-pleats and box-pleats, and 
borderings of grey fox fur or black martin, or the com- 
parative excellence of circulars of repped Antwerp silk 
lined with blue fox fur or with Hudson Bay sable? They 
all land in idiocy. I have seen men at the summer water- 
ing-places, through fashion the mere wreck of what they 
once were. Sallow of cheek. Meagre of limb. Hollow 
at the chest. Showing no animation save in rushing 
across a room to pick up a lady's fan. Simpering along 
the corridors, the same compliments they simpered 
twenty years ago. A New York lawyer last summer 
at United States Hotel, Saratoga, within our hearing, 
rushed across a room to say to a sensible woman, " You 
are as sweet as peaches!" The fools of fashion are 
myriad. Fashion not only destroys the body, but it 
makes idiotic the intellect. 

Yet, my friends, I have given you only the milder 
phase of this evil. It shuts a great multitude out of 
heaven. The first peal of thunder that shook Sinai 
declared: ft Thou shalt have no other God before me," 
and you will have to choose between the goddess of 
fashion and the Christian God. There are a great many 
seats in heaven, and they are all easy seats, but not one 
seat for the devotee of fashion. Heaven is for meek and 
quiet spirits. Heaven is for those who think more of 
their souls than of their bodies. Heaven is for those 
who have more joy in Christian charity than in dry- 
goods religion. Why, if you with your idolatry of 
fashion should somehow get into heaven, you would be 



DRY— GOODS RELIGION. 



81 



for putting a French roof on the " house of many man- 
sions," and making plaits and Hamburg embroidery 
and flounces in the robes, and you would be for intro- 
ducing the patterns of Butterick's Quarterly Delineator. 
Give up this idolatry of fashion, or give up heaven. 
What would you do standing beside the Countess of 
Huntington, whose joy it was to build chapels for the 
poor, or with that Christian woman of Boston, who fed 
fifteen hundred children of the street at Faneuil Hall on 
New Year's Day, giving out as a sort of doxology at the 
end of the meeting a pair of shoes to each one of them; 
or those Dorcases of modern society who have conse- 
crated tlieir needles to the Lord, and who will get eternal 
reward for every stitch they take. O! men and women, 
give up the idolatry of fashion. The rivalries and the 
competitions of such a life are a stupendous wretched- 
ness. You will always find some one with brighter array 
and with more palatial residence, and with lavender kid 
gloves that make a tighter fit. And if you buy this 
thing and wear it you will wish you had bought some- 
thing else and worn it. And the frets of such a life will 
bring the crows' feet to your temples before they are due, 
and when you come to die you will have a miserable 
time. ,1 have seen men and women of fashion die, and 
I never saw one of .them die well. The trappings off", 
there they lay on the tumbled pillow, and there were just 
two things that bothered them — a wasted life and a com- 
ing eternity. I could not pacify them, for their body* 
mind, and soul, had been exhausted in the worship of 
fashion, and they could not appreciate the gospel. When 
I knelt by their bedside they were mumbling out their 
regrets and saying, " O God ! O God!" Their garments 
hung up in the wardrobe, never again to be seen by them. 
Without any exception, so far as my memory serves me, 



82 



DRY -GOODS RELIGION. 



they died without hope, and went into eternity unpre- 
pared. The two most ghastly death-beds on earth are, 
the one where a man dies of delirium tremens, and the 
other where a woman dies after having sacrificed all 
her faculties of body, mind, and soul in the worship of 
fashion. My friends, we must appear in judgment to 
answer for what we have worn on our bodies as well as 
for what repentances we have exercised with our souls. 
On that day I see coming in, Beau Brummel of the last 
century, without his cloak, like which all England got a 
cloak; and without his cane, like which all England got 
a cane; without his snuff-box, like which all England 
got a snuff-box — he, the fop of the ages, particular about 
everything but his morals; and Aaron Burr, without 
the letters that down to old age he showed in pride, to 
prove his early wicked gallantries; and Absalom without 
his hair; and Marchioness Pompadour without her titles; 
and Mrs. Arnold, the belle of Wall street, when that 
was the center of fashion, without her fripperies of 
vesture. 

And in great haggardness they shall go away into 
eternal expatriation; while among the queens of heaven- 
ly society will be found Vashti, who wore the modest 
veil before the palatial bacchanalians; and Hannah, who 
annually made a little coat for Samuel at the temple; and 
Grandmother Lois, the ancestress of Timothy, who imi- 
tated her virtue; and Mary, who gave Jesus Christ to 
the world; and many of you, the wives and mothers and 
sisters and daughters of the present Christian Church, 
who through great tribulation are entering into the 
kingdom of God. Christ announced who would make 
up the royal family of heaven when he said, " Whoso- 
ever doeth the will of God, the same is my brother, my 
sister, my mother," 



THE KESERVOIES SALTED. 



•83 



CHAPTER, VI. 
THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 

" And the men of the city said mito Elisha, Behold, I pray thee, the 
situation of this city is pleasant, as iny Lord seeth ; but the water is 
naught, and the ground barren And he said, Bring me a new cruse, 
and put salt therein. And they brought it to him. And he went 
forth unto the spring of the waters, and cast the salt in there, and said, 
Thus saith the Lord, I have healed these waters ; there shall not be 
from thence any more death or barren land. So the waters were 
healed unto this day." — 2 Kings ii ; 19-22. 

It is difficult to estimate how much of the prosperity 
and health of a city are dependent upon good water. 
The day when, through .well-laid pipes and from safe 
reservoir, an abundance of water, from Croton or Ridge- 
wood, is brought into the city, is appropriately celebrated 
with oration and pyrotechnic display. Thank God every 
day for clear, br'jht, beautiful, sparkling water, as it 
drops in the shower, or tosses up in the fountain, or 
rushes out at the hydrant. 

The city of Jericho, notwithstanding all its physical 
and commercial advantages, was lacking in this impor- 
tant element. There was enough water, but it was dis- 
eased, and the people were crying out by reason thereof. 
Elisha the prophet comes to the rescue. He says: " Get 
me a new cruse; fill it with salt and bring it to me." 
So the cruse of salt was brought to the prophet, and I 
see him walking out to the general reservoir, and he 
takes that salt and throws it into the reservoir, and lo! 
all the impurities depart, through a supernatural and 



84 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTER. 



divine influence, and the waters are good and fresh and 
clear, and all the people clap their hands and lift up 
their faces in their gladness. Water for Jericho— clear, 
bright, beautiful, God-given water! 

For several Sabbath mornings I have pointed out to 
you the fountains of municipal corruption, and this 
morning I propose to show you what are the means for 
the rectification of those fountains. There are four or 
five kinds of salt that have a cleansing tendency. So far 
as God may help me this morning, I shall bring a cruse 
of salt to the work, and empty it into the great reservoir 
of municipal crime, sin, shame, ignorance, and abomina- 
tion. 

In this work of cleansing our cities, I have first to re- 
mark that there is a work for the broom and the shovel 
that nothing else can do. There always has been an inti- 
mate connection between iniquity and dirt. The filthy 
parts of the great cities are always the most iniquitous 
parts. The gutters and the pavements of the Fourth 
Ward, New York, illustrate and symbolize the character 
of the people in the Fourth Ward. 

The first thing that a bad man does when he is con- 
verted is thoroughly to wash himself. There were, this 
morning, on the way to the different churches, thousands 
of men in proper apparel who, before their conversion, 
were unfit in their Sabbath dress. When on the Sab- 
bath I see a man uncleanly in his dress, my suspicions 
in regard to his moral character are aroused, and they 
are always well founded. So as to allow no excuse for 
lack of ablution, God has cleft the continents with rivers 
and lakes, and has sunk five great oceans, and all the 
world ought to be clean. Away, then, with the dirt from 
our cities, not only because the physical health needs an 
ablution, but because all the great moral and religions 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



85 



interests of the cities demand it as a positive necessity. 
A filthy city always has been and always will be a wicked 
city. 

Another corrective influence that we would bring to 
bear upon the evils of our great cities is a Christian 
printing '-press. The newspapers of any place are the 
test of its morality or immorality. The newsboy who 
runs along the street with a roll of papers under his arm 
is a tremendous force that cannot be turned aside nor 
resisted, and at his every step the city is elevated or de- 
graded. This hungry, all-devouring American mind 
must have something to read, and upon editors and 
authors and book-publishers and parents and teachers 
rest the responsibility of what they shall read. Almost 
every man you meet has a book in his hand or a news- 
paper in his pocket. What book is it you have in your 
hand? What newspaper is it you have in your pocket ? 
Ministers may preach, reformers may plan, philan- 
thropists may toil for the elevation of the suffering and 
the criminal, but until all the newspapers of the land 
and all the booksellers of the land set themselves against 
an iniquitous literature — until then we will be fighting 
against fearful odds. Every time the cylinders of Har- 
per or Appleton or Ticknor or Peterson or Lippincott 
turn, they make the earth quake. From them goes forth 
a thought like an angel of light to feed and bless the 
world, or like an angel of darkness to smite it with cor- 
ruption and sin and shame and death. May God by His 
omnipotent Spirit purify and elevate the American 
printing-press! 

I go on further and say that we must depend upon the 
school for a great deal of correcting influence. Com- 
munity can no more afford to have ignorant men in its 
midst than it can afford to have uncaged hyenas. Ignor- 



86 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



ance is the mother of hydra-headed crime. Thirty-one 
per cent, of all the criminals of New York State can 
neither read nor write. Intellectual darkness is generally 
the precursor of moral darkness. I know there are edu- 
cated outlaws — men who, through their sharpness of in- 
tellect, are made more dangerous. They use their fine 
penmanship in signing other people's names, and their 
science in ingenious burglaries, and their fine manners 
in adroit libertinism. They go their round of sin with 
well-cut apparel, and dangling jewelry, and watches of 
eighteen karats, and kid gloves. They are refined, edu- 
cated, magnificent villains. But that is the exception. 
It is generally the case that the criminal classes are as 
ignorant as they are wicked. For the proof of what 1 
say, go into the prisons and the penitentiaries, and look 
upon the men and women incarcerated. The dishonesty 
in the eye, the low passion in the lip, are not more con- 
spicuous than the ignorance in the forehead. The igno- 
rant classes are always the dangerous classes. Dema- 
gogues marshal them. They are helmless, and are driven 
before the gale. 

It is high time that all city and State authority, as well 
as the Federal Government, appreciated the awful sta- 
tistic that while years ago in this country there was set 
apart forty-eight millions of acres of land for school pur- 
poses, there are now in New England one hundred and 
ninety-one thousand people who can neither read nor 
write, and in the State of Pennsylvania two hundred and 
twenty-two thousand who can neither read nor write, 
and in the State of New York two hundred and forty- 
one thousand who can neither read nor write, while in 
the United States there are nearly six millions who can 
neither read nor write. A statistic enough to stagger 
and confound any man who loves his God and his country. 



THE RESERVOIRS SA.LTEC 



87 



"Now, in view of this fact, I am in favor of compulsory 
education. The Eleventh ward, in New York, has five 
thousand children who are not in school. When parents 
are so bestial as to neglect this duty to the child, I say 
the law, with a strong hand, at the same time with a 
gentle hand, ought to lead these little ones into the light 
of intelligence and good morals. It was a beautiful tab- 
leau when in our city a few weeks ago, a swarthy police- 
man having picked up a lost child in the street, wag 
found appeasing its cries by a stick of candy he had 
bought at the apple-stand. That was well done, and 
beautifully done. But, oh! these thousands of little ones 
through our streets, who are crying for the bread of 
knowledge and intelligence. Shall we not give it to them ? 
The officers of the law ought to go down into the cellars, 
and up into the garrets, and bring out these benighted lit- 
tle ones, and put them under educational innences; after 
they have passed through the bath and under the comb, 
putting before them the spelling-book, and teaching them 
to read the Lord's Prayer and the sermon on the Mount: 
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom 
of heaven." Our city ought to be father and mother 
both to these outcast little ones. As a recipe for the cure 
of much of the woe and want and crime of our city, I 
give the words which Thorwaldsen had chiseled on the 
open scroll in the hand of the statue of John Gutenberg, 
the inventor of the art of printing: " Let there be light!" 

Still further: reformatory societies are an important 
element in the rectification of the public fountains. 
Without calling any of them by name, I refer more 
especially to those which recognize the physical as well 
as the moral woes of the world. There was pathos and 
a great deal of common sense in what the poor woman 
said to Dr. Guthrie when he was telling her what a very 



88 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



good woman she ought to be. " Oh," she said, "if you 
were as hungry and cold as I am, you could think of 
nothing else." I believe the great want of our city is 
the Gospel and something to eat! Faith and repentance 
are of infinite importance; but they cannot satisfy an 
empty stomach! You have to go forth in this work with 
the bread of eternal life in your right hand, and the bread 
of this life in your left hand, and then you can touch 
them, imitating the Lord Jesus Christ, who first broke 
the bread and fed the multitude in the wilderness, and 
then began to preach, recognizing the fact that while 
people are hungry they will not listen, and they will not 
repent. We want more common sense in the distribu- 
tion of our charities; fewer magnificent theories, and 
more hard work. In the last war, a few hours after the 
battle of Antietam, I had a friend who was moving over 
the field, and who saw a good Christian man distributing 
tracts. My friend said to him: " This is no time to dis- 
tribute tracts. There are three thousand men around 
here who are bleeding to death, who have not had ban- 
dages put on. Take care of their bodies, then give them 
tracts." That was well said. Look after the woes of 
the body, and then you will have some success in look- 
ing after the woes of the soul. 

Still further : the great remedial influence is the Gos- 
pel of Christ. Take that down through the lanes of 
suffering. Take that down amid the hovels of sin. Take 
that up amid the mansions and palaces of your city. That 
is the salt that can cure all the poisoned fountains of pub- 
lic iniquity. Do you know that in this cluster of three 
cities, New York, Jersey City, and Brooklyn, there are 
a great multitude of homeless children? You see I speak 
more in regard to the youth and the children of the 
country, because old villains are seldom reformed, and 



ON THE WAY TO THE CRUCIFIXION. 



" And they compel one Simon, a'Cyrenian, who passed by, coming 
out of the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to bear his 
cross." — Mark 15. 21. 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



89 



therefore I talk more about the little ones. They sleep 
under the stoops, in the burned-out safe, in the wagons 
in the streets, on the barges, wherever they can get a 
board to cover them. And in the summer they sleep all 
night long in the parks. Their destitution is well set 
forth by an incident. A city missionary asked one of 
them: "Where is your home?" Said he: "I don't have 
no home, sir." "Well, where are your father and 
mother?" "They are dead, sir." "Did you ever hear 
of Jesus Christ?" "No, I don't think I ever heard of 
him." "Did you ever hear of God. Yes, I've heard of 
God. Some of the poor people think it kind of lucky 
at night to say something over about that before they 
goto sleep. Yes, sir, I've heard of him." Think of a 
conversation like that in a Christian city. 

How many are waiting for you to come out in the 
spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and rescue them from 
the wretchedness here ! A man was trying to talk with 
a group of these outcasts, and read the Bible, and trying 
to comfort them, and he said: "My dear boys, when your 
father and your mother forsake you, who will take you 
up?" They shouted "The perlice, sir; the perlice? " Oh 
that the Church of God had arms long enough and hearts 
warm enough to take them up. How many of them 
there are! As I was thinking of the subject this morning, 
it seemed to me as though there was a great brink, and 
that these little ones with cut and torn feet were coming 
on toward it. And here is a group of orphans. O fathers 
and mothers, what do you think of these fatherless and 
motherless little ones ? No hand at home to take care 
of their apparel, no heart to pity them. Said one little 
one, when the mother died: "Who will take care of my 
clothes now?" The little ones are thrown out in this 
great, cold world. They are shivering on the brink like 



90 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



lambs on the verge of a precipice. Does not jour blood 
run cold as they go over it ? 

And here is another group that come on toward the 
precipice. They are the children of besotted parents. 
They are worse off than orphans. Look at that pale 
cheek: woe bleached it. Look at that gash across the 
forehead; the father struck it. Hear that heart-piercing 
cry: a drunken mother's blasphemy compelled it. And we 
come out and we say: "O ye suffering, peeled and 
blistered ones, we come to help you." " Too late!" cry 
thousands of voices. " The path we travel is steep down, 
and we can't stop. Too late!" and we catch our breath 
and we make a terrific outcry. " Too late!" is echoed 
from the garret to the cellar, from the gin-shop and 
from the brothel. " Too late!" It is too late, and they 
go over. 

Here is another group, an army of neglected children. 
They come on toward the brink, and every time they 
step ten thousand hearts break. The ground is red with 
the blood of their feet. The air is heavy with their 
groans. Their ranks are being filled up from all the 
houses of iniquity and shame. Skeleton Despair pushes 
them on toward the brink. The death-knell has already 
begun to toll, and the angels of God hover like birds 
over the plunge of a cataract. While these children 
are on the brink they halt, and throw out their hands, 
and cry: " Help! help!" O church of God, will you 
help? Men and women bought by the blood of the Son 
of God, will you help? while Christ cries from the 
heavens: "Save them from going down; I am the 
ransom." 

I stopped the other day on the street and just looked 
at the face of one of those little ones. Have you ever 
examined the faces of the neglected children of the 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



91 



poor? Other children have gladness in their faces. 
When a group of them rush across the road, it seems as 
though a spring gust had unloosened an orchard of apple 
blossoms. But these children of the poor. There is but 
little ring in their laughter, and it stops quick, as though 
some bitter memory tripped it. They have an old walk. 
They do not skip or run up on the lumber just for the 
pleasure of leaping down. They never bathed in the 
mountain stream. They never waded in the brook for 
pebbles. They never chased the butterfly across the 
lawn, putting their hat right down where it was. 
Childhood has been dashed out of them. Want waved 
its wizard wand above the manger of their birth, and 
withered leaves are lying where God intended a budding 
giant of battle. Once in a while one of these children 
gets out. Here is one, for instance. At ten years of age 
he is sent out by his parents, who say to him: "Here 
is a basket — now go ofT and beg and steal." The boy 
says: " I can't steal/' They kick him into a corner. 
That night he puts his swollen head into the straw; but 
a voice comes from heaven, saying, " Courage, poor boy, 
courage." Covering up his head from the bestiality, 
and stopping his ears from the cursing, he gets on up 
better and better. He washes his face clean at the public 
hydrant. With a few pennies got at running errands, 
he gets a better coat. Rough men, knowing that he 
comes from the Five Points, say: " Back with you, you 
little villain, to the place where you came from." But 
that night the boy says: "God help me, I can't go 
back;" and quicker than ever mother flew at the cry of 
a child's pain, the Lord responds from the heavens, 
"Courage, poor boy, courage." His bright face gets 
him a position. After a while he is second clerk. Years 
pass on ? and he is first clerk. Years pass on. The 



92 



THE EESEKVOIKS SALTED. 



glory of young manhood is on him. He comes into the 
firm. He goes on from one business success to another. 
He has achieved great fortune. He is the friend of the 
church of God, the friend of all good institutions, and 
one day he stands talking to the Board of Trade or to 
the Chamber of Commerce. People say: " Do you know 
who that is? Why, that is a merchant prince, and he 
was born in the Five Points." But God says in regard to 
him something better than that: " These are they 
which came out of great tribulation, and had their 
robes washed and made white in the blood of " the 
Lamb." Oh, for some one to' write the history of boy 
heroes and girl heroines who have triumphed over want 
and starvation and filth and rags. Yea, the record has 
already been made — made by the hand of God; and 
when these shall come at last with songs and rejoicing, 
it will take a very broad banner to hold the names of all 
the battle-fields on which they got the victory. 

Some years ago, a roughly-clad, ragged boy came into 
my brother's office in ]S r ew York, and said: "Mr. Tal- 
mage, lend me five dollars." My brother said: " Who 
are you?" The boy replied: " I am nobody. Lend me 
five dollars." "What do you want to do with five 
dollars?" " Well," the boy replied, " my mother is sick 
and poor, and I want to go into the newspaper business, 
and I shall get a home for her, and I will pay you back." 
My brother gave him the five dollars, of course never 
expecting to see it again; but he said: " When will you 
pay it?" The boy said: "I will pay it in six months, 
sir." Time went by, and one day a lad came into my 
brother's office, and said: "There's your five dollars." 
" What do you mean? What five dollars?" inquired my 
brother. " Don't you remember that a boy came in here 
six months ago and wanted to borrow five dollars to go 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



93 



into the newspaper business?" u Oh, yes, I remember. 
Are you the lad?" " Yes," he replied. "I have got 
along nicely. I have got a nice home for my mother 
(she is sick yet), and I am as well clothed as you are, and 
there's your five dollars." Oh, was he not worth saving? 
Why, that lad is worth fifty such boys as-I have some- 
times seen moving in elegant circles, never put to any 
use for God or man. Worth saving! I go farther than 
that, and tell you they are not only worth saving, but 
they are being saved. In one reform school, through 
which two thousand of these little ones passed, one 
thousand nine hundred and ninety-five turned out well. 
In other words, only five of the two thousand turned out 
badly. There are thousands of them who, through Chris- 
tian societies, have been transplanted to beautiful homes 
all over this land, and there are many who, through the 
rich grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, have already won 
the crown. A little girl was found in the streets of Bal- 
timore and taken into one of the reform societies, and 
they said to her, " What is your name?" She said, " My 
name is Mary." " What is your other name?" She said, 
11 I don't know." So they took her into the reform" 
society, and as they did not know her last name they 
always called her " Mary Lost," since she had been 
picked up out of the street. But she grew on, and after 
a while the Holy Spirit came to her heart, and she be- 
came a Christian child, and she changed her name; and 
when anybody asked her what her name was, she said, 
" It used to be Mary Lost; but now, since I have become 
a Christian, it is Mary Found." 

For this vast multitude, are we willing to go forth 
from this morning's service and see what we can do, 
employing all the agencies I have spoken of for the recti- 
fication of the poisoned fountains ? We live in a beautiful 



94 



THE RESERVOIRS SALTED. 



city. The lines have fallen to us in pleasant places, and 
we have a goodly heritage; and any man who does not 
like a residence in Brooklyn, must be a most uncom- 
fortable and unreasonable man. But, my friends, the 
material prosperity of a city is not its chief glory. There 
may be fine houses and beautiful streets, and that all be 
the garniture of a sepulcher. Some of the most pros- 
perous cities of the world have gone down, not one stone 
left upon another. But a city may be in ruins long be- 
fore a tower has fallen, or a column has crumbled, or a 
tomb has been defaced. When in a city the churches of 
God are full of cold formalities and inanimate religion; 
when the houses of commerce are the abode of fraud and 
unholy traffic; when the streets are filled with crime un- 
arrested and sin unenlightened and helplessness unpitied 
— that city is in ruins, though every church were a St. 
Peter's, and every moneyed institution were a Bank of 
England, and every library were a British Museum, and 
every house had a porch like that of Rheims and a roof 
like that of Amiens and a tower like that of Antwerp, 
and traceried windows like those of Freiburg. 

My brethren, our pulses beat rapidly the time away, 
and soon we will be gone; and what we have to do for 
the city in which we live we must do right speedily, or 
never do it at all. In that day, when those who have 
wrapped themselves in luxuries and despised the poor, 
shall come to shame and everlasting contempt, I hope it 
may be said of you and me that we gave bread to the 
hungry, and wiped away the tear of the orphan, and upon 
the wanderer of the street we opened the brightness and 
benediction of a Christian home; and then, through our 
instrumentality, it shall be known on earth and in heaven., 
that Mary Lost became Mary Found! 



THE BATTLE FUR BREAD. 



95 



CHAPTER VII. 
THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 

"And the ravens brought bread and flesh in the morning, and bread 
and flesh in the evening." — 1 Kings xvii: 6. 

The ornithology of the Bible is a very interesting 
study. The stork which knoweth her appointed time. 
The common sparrows teaching the lesson of God's 
providence. The ostriches of the desert, by careless 
incubation illustrating the recklessness of parents who 
do not take enough pains with their children. The 
eagle symbolizing riches which take wings and fly away. 
The pelican, emblemizing solitude. The bat, a flake of 
the darkness. The night hawk, the ossifrage, the cuckoo, 
the lapwing, the osprey, by the command of God in 
Leviticus, flung out of the world's bill of fare. I would 
like to have been with Audubon as he went through the 
aroods, with gun and pencil bringing down and sketch- 
ing the fowls of heaven, his unfolded portfolio thrilling 
all Christendom. "What wonderful creatures of God the 
birds are! Some of them this morning, like the songs 
of heaven let loose, bursting through the gates of heaven. 
Consider their feathers, which are clothing and convey- 
ance at the same time; the nine vertebrae of the neck, 
the three eyelids to each eye, the third eyelid an extra 
curtain for graduating the light of the sun. Some of 
these birds scavengers and some of them orchestra. 
Thank God for quail's whistle, and lark's carol, and the y 
twitter of the wren v called by the ancients the king of 



96 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



birds, because when the fowls of heaven went into a con- 
test as to who could fly the highest, and the eagle swung 
nearest the sun, a wren on the back of the eagle, after 
the eagle was exhausted, sprang up much higher, and so 
was called by the ancients the king of birds. Consider 
those of them that have golden crowns and crests, show- 
ing them to be feathered imperials. And listen to the 
humming-bird's serenade in the ear of the honeysuckle. 
Look at the belted kingfisher, striking like a dart from 
sky to water. Listen to the voice of the owl, giving the 
key-note to all croakers. And behold the condor, among 
the Andes, battling with the reindeer. I do not know 
whether an aquarium or aviary is the best altar from 
which to worship God. 

There is an incident in my text that baffles all the 
ornithological wonders of the world. The grain crop 
had been cut off. Famine was in the land. In a cave 
by the brook Cherith sat a minister of God, Elijah, 
waiting for something to eat. "Why did he not go to 
the neighbors? There were no neighbors, it was a wil- 
derness. Why did he not pick some of the berries? 
There were none. If there had been, they would have 
been dried up. Seated, one morning at the mouth of his 
cave, the prophet looks into the dry and pitiless heavens, 
and he sees a flock of birds approaching. Oh! if they 
were only partridges, or if he only had an arrow with 
which to bring them down. But as they come nearer 
he finds they are not comestible, but unclean, and the 
eating of them would be spiritual death. The strength 
of their beak, the length of their wings, the blackness of 
their color, their loud, harsh "cruck! cruck!" prove 
them to be ravens. They whirr around about the 
prophet's head, and then they come on fluttering wing 
and pause on the level of his lips, and one of the ravens 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



97 



brings bread, and another raven brings meat, and after 
they have discharged their tiny cargo they wheel past, 
and others come, until after a while the prophet has 
enough, and these black servants of the wilderness table 
are gone. For six months, and some say a whole year, 
morning and evening, the breakfast and supper bell 
sounded as these ravens rang out on the air their "cruck! 
cruck!" Guess where they got the food from. The old 
Rabbins say they got it from the kitchen of King Ahab. 
Others say that the ravens got the food from pious Oba- 
diah, who was in the habit of feeding the persecuted. 
Some say that the ravens brought the food to their 
young in the trees, and that Elijah had only to climb up 
and get it. Some say that the whole story is improb- 
able; for these were carnivorous birds, and the food they 
carried was the torn flesh of living beasts, and that cere- 
monially unclean, or it was carrion, and it would not 
have been fit for the prophet. Some say they were not 
ravens at all, but that the word translated " ravens " in 
my text ought to have been translated " Arabs; " so it 
would have read: " The Arabs brought bread and flesh 
in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening." 
Anything but admit the Bible to-be true. Hew away at 
this miracle until all the miracle is gone. Go on with 
the depleting process; but know, my brother, that you 
are robbing only one man — and that is yourself — of one 
of the most comforting, beautiful, pathetic, and tri- 
umphant lessons in all the ages. I can tell you who 
these purveyors were: they were ravens. I can tell you 
who freighted them with provisions. God. I can tell 
you who launched them. God. I can tell you who 
taught them which way to fly. God. I can tell you 
who told them at what cave to swoop. God. I can tell 
you who introduced raven to prophet, and prophet to 



98 



THE BATTLE FOB BREAD. 



raven. God. There is one passage I will whisper in 
your ear, for I would not want to utter it aloud, lest 
some one should drop down under its power: "If any 
man shall take away from the words of the prophesy of 
this book, God shall take away his part out of the book 
of life and out of the holy city." While, then, this 
morning we watch the ravens feeding Elijah, let the 
swift dove of God's Spirit sweep down the sky with 
Divine food, and on outspread wing pause at the lip of 
every soul hungering for comfort. 

If I should ask you where is the seat of war to-day, 
you would say on the Danube. ~No. That is compara- 
tively a small conflict, even if all Europe should plunge 
into it. The great conflict to-day is on the Thames, on 
the Hudson, on the Mississippi, on the Rhine, on the 
Nile, on the Ganges, on the Hoang Ho. It is a battle 
that has been going on for six thousand years. The 
troops engaged in it are twelve hundred millions, and 
those who have fallen are vaster in numbers than those 
who march. It is a battle for bread. Sentimentalists 
sit in a cushioned chair, in their pictured study, with 
their slippered feet on a damask ottoman, and say that 
this world is a great scene of avarice and greed. It does 
not seem so to me. If it were not for the absolute 
necessities of the cases, nine-tenths of the stores, facto- 
ries, shops, banking-houses, of the land would be closed 
to-morrow. Who is that man delving in the Black 
Hills ? or toiling in a New England factory ? or going 
through a roll of bills in the bank? or measuring a fab- 
ric on the counter? He is a champion sent forth in 
behalf of some home circle that has to be cared for — in 
behalf of some church of God that has to be supported — 
in behalf of some asylum of mercy that has to be sus- 
tained. Who is that woman bending over the sewing 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



99 



machine? or carrying the bundle? or sweeping the room? 
or mending the garment? or sweltering at the wash-tub? 
That is Deborah, one of the Lord's heroines, battling 
against Amalekitish want, which comes down with iron 
chariot to crush her and hers. The great question with 
the vast majority of people to-day is not whether Presi- 
dent Hayes treated South Carolina and Louisiana as he 
ought — not whether the Turkish Sultan or the Russian 
Czar ought to be helped in this conflict — the great ques- 
tion with the vast majority of people is: "How shall I 
support my family? How shall I meet my notes? How 
shall I pay my rent? How shall I give food, clothing, 
and education to those who are dependent upon me?" 
Oh! if God Would help me to-day to assist you in the 
solution of that problem, the happiest man in this house 
would be your preacher. I have gone out on a cold 
morning with expert sportsmen to hunt for pigeons ; I 
have gone out on the meadows to hunt for quail; I have 
gone out on the marsh to hunt for reed birds; but this 
morning I am out for ravens. 

Notice, in the first place, in the story of my text, that 
these winged caterers came to Elijah directly from God. 
" I have commanded the ravens that they feed thee," we 
find God saying in an adjoining passage. They did not 
come out of some other cave. They did not just happen 
to alight there. God freighted them, God launched 
them, and God told them by what cave to swoop. That 
is the same God that is going to supply you. He is 
your Father. You would have to make an elaborate 
calculation before you could tell me how many pounds 
of food and how many yards of clothing would be neces- 
sary for you and your family; but God knows without 
any calculation. You have a plate at his table, and you 
are going to be waited on, unless you act like a naughty 



100 



THE BATTLE FG2, BREAD, 



child, and kick, and scramble, and pound saucily the 
plate, and try to upset things. God has a vast family, 
and everything is methodized, and you are going to be 
served, if you will only wait your turn. God has already 
ordered all the suits of clothes you will ever need down 
to the last suit in which you shall be laid out. God has 
already ordered all the food you will ever eat down to 
the last crumb that will be put in your mouth in the 
dying sacrament. It may not be just the kind of food 
or apparel we would prefer. The sensible parent depends 
on his own judgment as to what ought to be the apparel 
and the food of the minor in the family. The child 
would say: "Give me sugars and confections." "Oh! 
no," says the parent. " You must have something 
plainer first." The child would say: "Oh! give me 
these great blotches of color in the garment." "!No," 
says the parent; "that wouldn't be suitable." Now, 
God is our Father, and we are minors, and lie is going 
to clothe us and feed us, although he may not always 
yield to our infantile wish for sweets and glitter. These 
ravens of the text did not bring pomegranates from the 
glittering platter of King Ahab. They brought bread 
and meat. God had all the heavens and the earth before 
him and under him, and yet he sends this plain food 
because it was best for Elijah to have it! Oh! be strong, 
my hearer, in the fact that the same God is going to 
supply you. It is never "hard times " with him. His 
ships never break on the rocks. His banks never fail. 
He has the supply for you, and he lias the means for 
sending it. He has not only the cargo, but the ship. If 
it were necessary he would swing out from the heavens 
a flock of ravens reaching from his gate to yours, until 
the food would be flung down the sky from beak to beak 
and from talon to talon. 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



101 



Notice, again, in this story of the text, that the ravens 
did not allow Elijah to hoard up a surplus. They did 
not bring enough on Monday to last all the week. They 
did not bring enough one morning to last until the next 
morning. They came twice a day, and brought just 
enough for one time. You know as well as I that the 
great fret of the world is that we want a surplus — we 
want the ravens to bring enough for fifty years. You 
have more confidence in the Long Island Bank than you 
have in the royal bank of heaven. You say: "All that 
is very poetic, but you may have the black ravens — give 
me the gold eagles." We had better be content with 
just enough. If, in the morning, your family eat up all 
the food there is in the house, do not sit down, and cry, 
and say: "I don't know where the next meal is coming 
from." About five, or six, or seven o'clock in the even- 
ing just look up, and you will see two black spots on the 
sky, and you will hear the flapping of wings, and, 
instead of Edgar A. Poe's insane raven "alighting on 
the chamber-door, only this, and nothing more/' you 
will find Elijah's two ravens, or the two ravens oj the 
Lord, the one bringing bread and the other bringing 
meat — plumed butcher and baker. 

God is infinite in resource. When the city of Rochelle 
was- besieged, and the inhabitants were dying of the fam- 
ine, the tides washed up on the beach as never before, 
and as never since, enough shell-fish to feed the whole 
city. God is good. There is no mistake about that. 
History tells us that, in 1555, in England, there was a 
great drought. The crops failed, but in Essex, on the 
rocks, in a place where they had neither sown nor cul- 
tured, a great crop of peas grew, until they filled a hun- 
dred measures; and there were blossoming vines enough 
promising as much more. But why go so far 2 I can 



102 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



give you a family incident. I will tell you a secret that 
has never been told. Some generations back there was 
a great drought in Connecticut, New England. The 
water disappeared from the hills and the farmers living 
on the hills drove their cattle down toward the valleys, 
and had them supplied at the wells and fountains of the 
neighbors. But these after awhile began to fail, and the 
neighbors said to Mr. Birdseye, of whom I shall speak: 
" You must not send your flocks and herds down here 
any more; our wells are giving out." Mr. Birdseye, the 
old Christian man, gathered his family at the altar, and 
with his family he gathered the slaves of the household— 
for bondage was then in vogue in Connecticut — and on 
their knees before God they cried for water; and the 
family story is, that there was weeping and great sobbing 
at that altar, that the family might not perish for lack of 
water, and that the herds and flocks might not perish. 
The family rose from the altar. Mr. Birdseye, the old 
man, took his staff and walked out over the hills, and in 
a place where he had been scores of times without notic- 
ing anything particular, he saw the ground was very 
dark, and he took his staff, and turned up the ground, 
and the water started; and he beckoned to his servants 
and they came, and they brought pails and buckets until 
all the family, and all the flocks and the herds, were 
cared for, and then they made troughs reaching from 
that place down to the house and barn, and the water 
flowed, and it is a living fountain to-day! Now, I call 
that old grandfather, Elijah, and I call that brook that 
began to roll then, and is rolling still, the brook Cherith; 
and the lesson to me, and to all who hear it, is, when 
you are in great stress of circumstances, pray and dig, 
dig and pray, and pray and dig. How does that passage 
go? — "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be 



THE BATTLE FOE BREAD. 



103 



removed, but my loving-kindness shall not fail." If 
your merchandise, if your mechanism, fail, look out for 
ravens. If you have, in your despondency, put God on 
trial, and condemned him as guilty of cruelty, I move, 
this morning for a new trial. If the biography of your 
life is ever written, I will tell you what the first chapter, 
and the middle chapter, and the last chapter will be 
about, if it is written accurately. The first about mercy, 
the middle chapter about mercy, the last chapter about 
mercy. The mercy that hovered over your cradle. The 
mercy that will hover over your grave. The mercy that 
will cover all between. 

Again, this story of the text impresses me that relief 
came to this prophet with the most unexpected, and with 
seemingly impossible, conveyance. If it had been a rob- 
in red-breast, or a musical meadow-lark, or a meek turtle- 
dove, or a sublime albatross that had brought the food 
to Elijah, it would not have been so surprising. But no. 
It was a bird so fierce and inauspicate that we have fash- 
ioned one- of our most forceful and repulsive words out 
of it — ravenous. That bird has a passion for picking out 
the eyes of men and animals. It loves to maul the sick 
and the dying. It swallows, with vulturous guggle, 
everything it can put its beak on ; and yet all the food 
Elijah gets for six months or a year is from the ravens. 
So your supply is going to come from an unexpected 
source. You think some great-hearted, generous man 
will come along and give you his name on the back of 
your note, or he will go security for you in some great 
enterprise. No, he will not. God will open the heart 
of some Shylock toward you. Your relief will come 
from the most unexpected quarter. The Providence 
that seemed ominous will be to you more than that 
which seemed auspicious. It will not be a chaffinch with 



104 



THE BATTLE FOB BREAD. 



breast and wing dashed with white, and brown, and 
chestnut: it will be a black raven. 

Here is where we all make our mistake, and that is in 
regard to the color of God's providence. A white provi- 
dence comes to us, and we say: "O! it is mercy." Then 
a black providence comes toward us, and we say: "O! 
that is disaster." The white providence comes to yon, 
and you have great business success, and you have fifty 
thousand dollars, and you get proud, and you get inde- 
pendent of God, and } t ou begin to feel that the prayer 
"Give me this day my daily bread " is inappropriate for 
you, for you have made provision for a hundred years. 
Then a black providence comes, and it sweeps everything 
away, and then you begin to pray, and you begin to feel 
your dependence, and begin to be humble before God, 
and you cry out for treasures in heaven. The black 
providence brought you salvation. The white provi- 
dence brought you ruin. That which seemed to be 
harsh, and fierce, and dissonant, was your greatest mer- 
cy. It was a raven. 

There was a child born in your house. All your 
friends congratulated you. The other children of the 
family and of the neighborhood stood amazed looking at 
the new-comer, and asked a great many questions, gene- 
alogical and chronological. You said — and you said 
truthfully — that a white angel flew through the room 
and left the little one there. That little one stood with 
its two feet in the very center of your sanctuary of affec- 
tion, and with its two hands it . took hold of the altar 
of your soul. But one day there came one of the three 
scourges of children — scarlet fever, or croup, or diph- 
theria — and all that bright scene vanished. The chatter- 
ing, the strange questions, the pulling at the dresses as 
you crossed the floor — all ceased. As the great friend of 



THE BATTLE FOE BREAD. 



105 



children stooped down and leaned toward that cradle, 
and took the little one in His arms, and walked away 
with it into the bower of eternal summer, your eye be- 
gan to follow Him, and you followed the treasure He car- 
ried, and you have been following them ever since; and, 
instead of thinking of heaven only once a week, as form- 
erly, you are thinking of it all the time, and you are 
more pure and tender-hearted than you used to be, and 
you are patiently waiting for the day-break. It is not 
self-righteousness in you to acknowledge that you are a 
better man than you used to be — yon are a better woman 
than you used to be. What was it that brought you the 
sanctifying blessing? O! it was the dark shadow on the 
nursery; it was the dark shadow on the short grave; it 
was the dark shadow on your broken heart; it was the 
brooding of a great black trouble; it was a raven — it was 
a raven. Dear Lord, teach this people that white provi- 
dences do not always mean advancement, and that black 
providences do not always mean retrogression. 

Children of God, get up out of your despondency. 
The Lord never had so many ravens as he has this morn- 
ing. Fling your fret and worry to the winds. Some- 
times, under the vexations of life, you feel like my little 
girl of four years last week, who said, under some child- 
ish vexations: "Oh, I wisli I could go to heaven, and see 
God, and pick flowers!" He will let you go when the 
right time comes to pick flowers. Until then, whatever 
you want, pray for. I suppose Elijah prayed pretty much 
all the time. Tremendous work behind him. Tremend- 
ous work before him. God has no spare ravens for idlers, 
or for people who are prayerless. I put it in the boldest 
shape possible, and I am willing to risk my eternity on 
it : ask God in the right way for what you want, and you 
shall have it, if it is best for you. Mrs. Jane Pi they, of 



106 



THE BATTF.E F-Mi BKRAD. 



Chicago, a well-known Christian woman, was left by her 
husband a widow with one half dollar and a cottage. She 
Was palsied, and had a mother, ninety years of age, to sup- 
port. The widowed soul every day asked God for all that 
was needed in the household, and the servant even was 
astonished at the precision with which God answered the 
prayers of that woman item by item, item by item. One 
day, rising from the family altar, the servant said: "You 
have not asked for coal, and the coal is out." Then they 
stood and prayed for the coal. One hour after that, the 
servant threw open the door and said: "The coal has 
come." A generous man, whose name I could give you, 
had sent — as never before and never since — a supply of 
coal. You cannot understand it. I do. Ravens! Ravens! 

My friend, you have a right to argue from precedent 
that God is going to take care of you. Has he not done 
it two or three times every day? That is most marvel- 
ous. I look back and I wonder that God has given me . 
food three times a day regularly all my life-time, never 
missing but once, and then I was lost in the mountains; 
but that very morning and that very night I met the 
ravens. 

O! the Lord is so good that I wish all this people 
would trust Him with the two lives — the life you are now 
living and that which every tick of the watch and every 
stroke of the clock informs you is approaching. Bread 
for your immortal soul comes to-day. See! They alight 
on the platform. They alight on the backs of all the 
pews. They swing among the arches. Ravens! Ravens! 
"Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness, for 
they shall be filled." To all the sinning, and the sor- 
rowing, and the tempted deliverance comes this hour. 
Look down, and you see nothing but spiritual deformi- 
ties. Look back, and you see nothing but wasted oppor- 



THE BATTLE FOR BREAD. 



107 



tunity. Cast your eye forward, and you have a fearful 
looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation, which 
shall devour the adversary. But 'look up, and you behold 
the whipped shoulders of an interceding Christ, and the 
face of a pardoning God, and the irradiation of an open- 
ing heaven. I hear the whir of their wings. Do you 
not feel the rush of the air on your cheek? Ravens! 
Ravens I 

There is only one question I want to ask: how many 
of this audience are willing to trust God for the supply 
of their bodies, and trust the Lord Jesus Christ for the 
redemption of their immortal souls? Amid the clatter 
of the hoofs and the clang of the wheels of the judg- 
ment chariot, the whole matter will be demonstrated* 



108 



fttJB HOK-Nfirr's Missies 



CHAPTER YIIL 
THE HORNET'S MISSION. 
"And the Lord will send the hornet." — Deut. vii: 20. 

It seems as if the insect world were determined to 
war against the human race. It is attacking the grain- 
fields and the orchards and the vineyards. The Colora- 
do beetle, the Nebraska grasshopper, the New Jersey lo- 
cust, the universal potato destroyer, seem to carry on the 
work which was begun ages ago when the insects buzzed 
out of Noah's ark as the door was opened. 

In my text the hornet flies out on its mission. It is a 
species of wasp, swift in its motion and violent in its 
sting. Its touch is torture to man or beast. We have 
all seen the cattle run bellowing from the cut of its lan- 
cet. In boyhood we used to stand cautiously looking at 
the globular nest hung from the tree branch, and while 
we were looking at the wonderful pasteboard covering 
we were struck with something that sent us shrieking 
away. The hornet goes in swarms. It has captains 
over hundreds, and twenty of them attacking one man 
will produce certain death. The Persians attempted to 
conquer a Christian city, but the elephants and the beasts 
on which the Persians rode were assaulted by the hornet, 
so that the whole army was broken up and the besieged 
city was rescued. This burning and noxious insect stung 
out the Hittites and the Canaanites from their country. 
What the gleaming sword and chariot of war could not 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



109 



accomplish was done by the puncture of an insect. The 
Lord sent the hornet. 

My friends, when we are assaulted by behemoths of 
trouble — great behemoths of trouble — we become chival- 
ric, and we assault them; we get on the high-mettled 
steed of our courage, and we make a cavalry charge at 
them, and, if God be with us, we come out stronger and 
better than when we went in. But, alas! for these in- 
sectile annoyances of life — these foes too small to shoot— 
these things without any avoirdupois weight — the gnats, 
and the midges, and the flies, and the wasps, and the 
hornets. In other words, it is the small stinging annoy- 
ances of our life which drive us out and use us up. In- 
to the best conditioned life, for some grand :md glorious 
purpose, God sends the hornet. 

I remark in the first place that these small stinging 
annoyances may come in the shape of a sensitive nerv- 
ous organization. People who are prostrated under 
typhoid fevers or with broken bones get plenty of 
sympathy, but who pities anybody that is nervous? 
The doctors say, and the family says, and everybody says, 
" Oh! she 's only a little nervous; that 's all." The sound 
of a heavy foot, the harsh clearing of a throat, a discord 
in music, a want of harmony between the shawl and the 
glove on the same person, a curt answer, a passing slight, 
the wind from the east, any one of ten thousand annoy- 
ances, opens the door for the hornet. The fact is, that 
the vast majority of the people in this country are over- 
worked, and their nerves are the first to give up. A 
great multitude are under the strain of Ley den, who, 
when he was told by his physician that if he did not stop 
working while he was in such poor physical health he 
would die, responded, " Doctor, whether I live or die the 
wheel must keep going around." These persons of whom 



110 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



I speak have a bleeding sensitiveness. The flies love to 
light on anything raw, and these people are like the 
Canaanites spoken of in the text or in the context — they 
have a very thin covering and are vulnerable at all 
points. "And the Lord sent the hornet." 

Again, these small insect annoyances may come to us 
in the shape of friends and acquaintances who are always 
saying disagreeable things. There are some people you 
cannot be with for half an hour but you feel cheered and 
comforted. Then there are other people you cannot be 
with for five minutes before you feel miserable. They 
do not mean to disturb you, but they sting you to the 
bone. They gather up all the yarn which the gossips 
spin, and peddle it. They gather up all the adverse crit- 
icisms about your person, about your business, about 
your home, about your church, and they make your ear 
the funnel into which they pour it. They laugh heartily 
when they tell you, as though it were a good joke, and 
yon laugh too — outside. These people are brought to 
our attention in the Bible, in the Book of Ruth: Naomi 
went forth beautiful and with the finest of worldly pros- 
pects into another land, but after awhile she came back 
widowed, and sick, and poor. What did her friends do 
when she came back to the city? They all went out, 
and, instead of giving her common-sense consolation, 
what did they do? Read the book of Ruth and find out. 
They threw up their hands and said, "Is this Naomi?" 
as much as to say " How very bad you look! " When I 
entered the ministry I looked very pale for years, and 
every year, for four or five years, a hundred times a year, 
I was asked if I was not in a consumption ! And pass- 
ing through the room I would sometimes hear people 
sigh and say, "A-ah! not long for this world!" I resolved 
in those times that I never, in any conversation, would 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



Ill 



say anything depressing, and by the help of God I have 
kept the resolution. These people of whom I speak reap 
and bind in the great harvest-field of discouragement. 
Some days you greet them with a hilarious "Good 
morning," and they come buzzing at you with some de- 
pressing information. " The Lord sent the hornet." It 
is astonishing how some people prefer to write and to 
say disagreeable things. That was the case when four 
or five years ago Henry M. Stanley returned after his 
magnificent exploit of finding Doctor David Livingstone, 
and when Mr. Stanley stood before the savans of Europe, 
and many of the small critics of the day, under pretence 
of getting geographical information, put to him most in- 
solent questions, he folded his arms and refused to an- 
swer. At the very time when you would suppose all de- 
cent men would have applauded the heroism of the man, 
there were those to hiss. "The Lord sent the hornet." 
And now at this time, when that man sits down on the 
western coast of Africa, sick and worn perhaps in the 
grandest achievement of the age in the way of geograph- 
ical discovery, there are small critics all over the world to 
buzz and buzz, and caricature and deride him, and after a 
while he will get the London papers, and, as he opens them, 
out will fly the hornet. When I see that there are so 
many people in the world who like to say disagreeable 
things, and write disagreeable things, I come almost in 
my weaker moments to believe what a man said to me in 
Philadelphia one Monday morning. I went to get the 
horse that was at the livery, and the hostler, a plain man, 
said to me: "Mr. Talmage, I saw that you preached to 
the young men yesterday." I said, " Yes." He said, 
"No use, no use; man's a failure." 

The small insect annoyances of life sometimes come in 
the shape of a local physical trouble, which does not 



112 



THE HOUNET's MISSION. 



amount to a positive prostration, but which bothers you 
when you want to feel the best. Perhaps it is a sick 
headache which has been the plague of your life, and 
you appoint some occasion of mirth, or sociality, or use- 
fulness, and when the clock strikes the hour you cannot 
make your appearance. Perhaps the trouble is between 
the ear and the forehead, in the shape of a neuralgic 
twinge. Nobody can sec it or sympathize with you; but 
just at the time when you want your intellect clearest, 
and your disposition brightest, you feel a sharp, keen, 
disconcerting thrust. "The Lord sent the hornet." 

Perhaps these small insect annoyances will come in 
the shape of a domestic irritation. The parlor and the 
kitchen do not always harmonize. To get good service 
and to keep it is one of the great questions of the coun- 
try. Sometimes it may be the arrogancy and inconsid- 
erateness of employers; but whatever be the fact, we all 
admit there are these insect annoyances winging their 
way out from the culinary department. If the grace of 
God be not in the heart of the housekeeper, she cannot 
maintain her equilibrium. The men come home at night 
and hear the story of these annoyances, and say: "Oh! 
these home troubles are very little things." They are 
small, small as wasps, but they sting. Martha's nerves 
were all unstrung when she rushed in asking Christ to 
reprove Mary, and there are tens of thousands of women 
who are dying, stung to death by these pestiferous do- 
mestic annoyances. "The Lord sent the hornet." 

These small insect disturbances may also come in the • 
shape of business irritations. There are men here who 
went through 1857 and Sept. 21, 1869, without losing 
their balance, who are every day unhorsed by little an- 
noyances — a clerk's ill-manners, or a blot of ink on a bill 
of lading, or the extravagance of a partner who over- 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



113 



draws his account, or the underselling by a business 
rival, or the whispering of business confidences in the 
street, or the making of some little bad debt which was 
against jour judgment, just to please somebody else. It 
is not the panics that kill the merchants. Panics come 
only once in ten or twenty years. It is the constant din 
of these every-day annoyances which is sending so many 
of our best merchants into nervous dyspepsia and paraly- 
sis and the grave. When our national commerce full flat 
on its face, these men stood up and felt almost defiant; 
but their life is giving way now under the swarm of 
these pestiferous annoyances. "The Lord sent the 
hornet." 

I have noticed in the history of some of my congre- 
gation that their annoyances are multiplying, and that 
they have a hundred there they used to have ten. The 
naturalist tells us that a wasp sometimes has a family of 
twenty thousand wasps, and it does seem as if every an- 
noyance of your life bred a million. By the help of 
God to-day I want to show you the other side. The 
hornet is of no use? Oh, yes! The naturalists tell us 
they are very important in the world's economy; they 
kill spiders and they clear the atmosphere; and I really 
believe God sends the annoyances of our life upon us 
to kill the spiders of the soul and to clear the atmos- 
phere of our skies. These annoyances are sent on us, I 
think, to wake us up from our lethargy. There is noth- 
ing that makes a man so lively as a nest of "yellow 
jackets," and I think that these annoyances are intended 
to persuade us of the fact that this is not a world for us 
to stop in. If we had a bed of everything that was at- 
tractive and soft and easy, what would we want of 
heaven? You think that the hollow tree sends the hor- 



114 



THE HORNET'S MISSION, 



net, or you think the devil sends the hornet. I want to 
correct your opinion. " The Lord sent the hornet." 

Then I also think these annoyances come upon us to 
culture our patience. In the gymnasium you find upright 
parallel bars — bars with holes over each other for pegs 
to be put in. Then the gymnast takes a peg in each 
hand and he begins to climb, one inch at a time, or two 
inches, and getting his strength cultured, reaches after a 
while the ceiling. And it seems to me that these annoy- 
ances in life are a moral gymnasium, each worry a peg 
by which we are to climb higher and higher in Christian 
attainment. We all love to see patience, but it cannot 
be cultured in fair weather. It is a child of the storm. 
If you had everything desirable and there was nothing 
more to get, what would you want with patience? The 
only time to culture it is when you are slandered and 
cheated, and sick and half dead. "Oh," you say, "if I 
only had the circumstances of some well-to-do man I 
would be patient too." You might as well say, " If it 
were not for this water I would swim;" or, "I could 
shoot this gun if it were not for the caps." When you 
stand chin-deep in annoyances is the time for you to swim 
out toward the great headlands of Christian attainment, 
and when your life is loaded to the muzzle with repul- 
sive annoyances — that is the time to draw the trigger. 
Nothing but the furnace will ever burn out of us the 
clinker and the slag. I have formed this theory in re- 
gard to small annoyances and vexations: It takes just so 
much trouble to fit us for usefulness and for heaven. 
The only question is, whether we shall take it in the 
bulk, or pulverized and granulated. Here is one man 
who takes it in the bulk. His back is broken, or his 
eyesight put out, or some other awful calamity befalls 
him; while the vast majority of people take the thingpiece- 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



115 



meal. Which way would you rather have it? Of course in 
piecemeal. Better have five aching teeth than one broken 
jaw. Better ten fly- blisters than an amputation. Better 
twenty squalls than one cyclone. There may be a differ- 
ence of opinion as to allopathy and homcepathy ; but in 
this matter of trouble I like homoeopathic doses — small 
pellets of annoyance rather than some knock-down dose 
of calamity. Instead of the thunderbolt give us the hor- 
net. If you have a bank you would a great deal rather 
that fifty men should come in with cheques less than a 
hundred dollars than to have two depositors come in the 
same day each wanting his ten thousand dollars. In 
this latter case, you cough and look down at the floor 
and up at the ceiling before you look into the safe. 
Now, my friends, would you not rather have these small 
drafts of annoyance on your bank of faith than some all- 
staggering demand upon your endurance? I want to 
make you strong, that you will not surrender to small 
annoyances. In the village of Hamelin, tradition says, 
there was an invasion of rats, and these small creatures 
almost devoured the town and threatened the lives of the 
population, and the story is that a piper came out one 
day and played a very sweet tune, and all the vermin 
followed him — followed him to the banks of the Weser 
and then he blew a blast and they dropped in and disap- 
peared forever. Of course this is a fable, but I wish I 
could, on the sweet flute of the Gospel, draw forth all the 
nibbling and burrowing annoyances of your life, and play 
them down into the depths forever. How many touches 
did the artist give to his picture of "Cotopaxi," or his 
"Heart of the Andes?" I suppose about fifty thousand 
touches. I hear the canvas saving, "Why do you keep 
me trembling with that pencil so long? Why don't you 
put it on in one dash?" " No," says the artists " I know 



116 



THE HORNET'S MISSION. 



how to make a painting; it will take fifty thousand of 
these touches." And I want you, my friends, to under- 
stand that it is these ten thousand annoyances which 
under God, are making up the picture of your life, to he 
hung at last in the galleries of heaven, fit for angels to 
look at. God knows how to make a picture. 

If I had my way with you I would have you possess 
all possible worldly prosperity. I w T ould have you each 
one a garden — a river running through it, geraniums 
and shrubs on the sides, and the grass and flowers as 
beautiful as though the rainbow had fallen. I would 
have you a house, a splendid mansion, and the bed 
should be covered with upholstery dipped in the setting 
sun. I would have every hall in your house set with stat- 
ues and statuettes, and then I would have the four quart- 
ers of the globe pour in all their luxuries on your table, 
and you should have forks of silver and knives of gold, 
inlaid with diamonds and amethysts. Then you should 
each one of you have the finest horses, and your pick of 
the equipages of the world. Then I would have you 
live a hundred and fifty years, and you should not have 
a pain or ache until the last breath. "Not each one of 
us?" you say. Yes, each one of you. "JSTot to your 
enemies?" Yes; the only difference I would make with 
them would be that 1 would put a little extra gilt on 
their walls and a little extra embroidery on their slippers. 
But you say, " Why does not God give us all these 
things?" Ah ! I bethink myself. He is wiser. It would 
make fools and sluggards of us if we had our w r ay. 2n t o 
man puts his best picture in the portico or vestibule of 
his house. God meant this w T orld to be only the vesti- 
bule of heaven, that great gallery of the universe toward 
which we are aspiring. We must not have it too good 
in this world, or we would want no heaven. You are 



THE HORNET'' S MISSION. 



1J7 



surprised that aged people are so willing to go out of 
this world. I will tell you the reason. It is not only 
because of the bright prospects in heaven, but it is be- 
cause they feel that seventy years of annoyance is 
enough. They would have lain down in the soft mead- 
ows of this world forever, but "God sent the hornet." 

My friends, I shall not have preached in vain if I have 
shown you that the annoyances of life, the small annoy- 
ances, may be subservient to your present and eternal ad- 
vantage. Polycarp was condemned to be burned at the 
stake. The stake was planted. He was fastened to it, 
the faggots were placed round about the stake, they were 
kindled, but, by some strange current of the atmosphere, 
history tells us, the names bent outward like the sails of 
a ship under a strong breeze, and then far above they 
came together, making a canopy; so that instead of being 
deetroyed by the flames, there he stood in a flamboy- 
ant bower planted by his persecutors. They had to take 
his life in another way, by the point of the poinard. 
And I have to tell you this morning that God can make 
all the flames of your trial a wall of defense and a cano- 
py for the soul. God is just as willing to fulfill to you as 
he was to Polycarp the promise, " When thou passest 
through the fire thou shalt not be burned." In heaven 
you will acknowledge the fact that you never had one 
annoyance too many, and through all eternity you will 
be grateful that in this world the Lord did send the hor- 
net. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh 
in the morning." "All things work together for good to 
those who love God." The Lord sent the sunshine. 
"The Lord sent the hornet.* 



118 



TBS OUTSIDE SHXBF. 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 
Other sheep I have which are not of this fold. — John x: IS. 

There is no monopoly in religion. The grace of God 
is not a little property that we may fence off and 
have all to ourselves. It is not a king's park at which 
we look through a barred gate-way, wishing that we 
might go in and see the deer aod the statuary, and pluck 
the flowers and fruits in the royal conservatory. No, it 
is the Father's orchard, and everywhere there are bars 
that we may let down and gates that we may swing 
open. 

In my boyhood, next to the country school-house, 
there was an orchard of apples, owned by a very lame 
man, who, although there were apples in the place per- 
petually decaying, and by scores and scores of bushels, 
never would allow any of us to touch the fruit. One 
day, in the sinfulness of a nature inherited from our 
first parents, who were ruined by the same temptation, 
some of us invaded that orchard ; but soon retreated, for 
the man came after us at a speed reckless of making his 
lameness worse, and cried out: "Boys, drop those apples, 
or I'll set the dog on you!" 

Well, my friends, there are Christian men who have 
the Church under severe guard. There is fruit in this 
orchard for the whole world; but they have a rough and 
unsympathetic way of accosting outsiders, as though 
they had no business here, though the Lord wants them 



The Scene on Calvary. — " And set up over his head his accusation, 
written, This is Jesus, the King of the Jews." 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



119 



all to come and take the largest and the n'pest fruit on 
the premises. Have you an idea that because you were 
baptized at thirteen months of age, and because you have 
all your life been under hallowed influences, that there- 
fore you have a right to one whole side of the Lord's 
table, spreading yourself out and taking up the entire 
room? I tell you no. You will have to haul in youi 
elbows, for I shall to-night place on either side of you 
those whom you never expected would sit there; for, as 
Christ said to the Jews long ago, so he says to you and 
to me to-night: "Other sheep I have which are not of 
this fold." 

MacDonald, the Scotchman, has four or five dozen 
head of sheep. Some of them are browsing on the 
heather, some of them are lying down under the trees, 
some of them are in his yard; they are scattered around 
in eight or ten different places. Cameron, his neighbor, 
comes over and says: "I see you have thirty sheep; I 
have just counted them." "Ko," says MacDonald, "I 
have a great many more sheep than that. Some are 
here, and some are elsewhere. They are scattered all 
around about. I have four or five thousand in my flocks. 
Other sheep I have, which are not in this fold.' " 

So Christ says to us. Here is a knot of Christians 
and there is a knot of Christians, but they make up a 
small part of the flock. Here is the Episcopal fold, the 
Methodist fold, the Lutheran fold, the Congregational 
fold, the Presbyterian fold, the Baptist and the Pedo-Bap- 
tist fold, the only difference between these last two being 
the mode of sheep- washing; and so they are scattered all 
over; and we come with our statistics, and say there are so 
many thousand of the Lord's sheep; but Christ responds: 
"No, no; you have not seen more than one out of a 
thousand of my flock. They are scattered all over the 



120 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



earth. 'Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.' w 
Christ, in my text, was prophesying the conversion of 
the Gentiles with as mnch confidence as thongh they 
were already converted, and he is, to-night, in the words 
of my text, prophesying the coming of a great multi- 
tude of outsiders that you never supposed would come 
in, saying to you and saying to me: "Other sheep I have 
which are not of this fold." 

In the first place, I remark, that the heavenly Shep- 
herd will find many of his sheep amid the non-church- 
goers. There are congregations where they are all Chris- 
tians, and they seem to be completely finished, and they 
remind one of the skeleton-leaves which, by chemical 
preparation, have had all the greenness and verdure 
taken off of them, and are left cold, and white, and del- 
icate, nothing wanting but a glass case to put over them. 
The minister of Christ has nothing to do with such 
Christians but to come once a week, and with ostrich 
feather dust off the accumulation of the last six days, 
leaving them bright and crystalline as before. But the 
other kind of a Church is an armory, with perpetual 
sound of drum and fife, gathering recruits for the Lord 
of hosts. We say to every applicant: "Do you want to 
be on God's side, the safe side and the happy side! If 
so, come in the armory and get equipped. Here is a 
bath in which to bo cleansed. Here are sandals to put 
upon your feet Here is a helmet for your brow. Hero 
is a breast-plate for your heart. Here is a sword for 
your right arm, and yonder is the battle-field. Quit 
yourselves like men I" 

There are some here to-night, who say: "I stopped 
going to church ten or twenty years ago." My brother, 
is it not strange that you should be the first man I 
should talk to to-night? I know all your case; I know 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



121 



it very well. You have not been accustomed to come 
into the house of God, but I have a surprising announce- 
ment to make to you: you are going to become one of 
the Lord's sheep. "Ah," you say, "it is impossible. 
You don't know how far I am from anything of that 
kind." I know all about it. I have wandered up and 
down the world, and I understand your case. I have a 
still more startling announcement to make in regard to 
you : you are not only going to become one of the Lord's 
sheep, but you will become one to-night. You will stay 
after this service to be talked with about your soul. 
People of God, pray for that man I That is the only use 
for you to-night. I shall not break off so much as a 
crumb for you, Christians, in this sermon, for I am going 
to give it all to the outsiders. "Other sheep I have 
which are not of this fold." 

When the Atlantic went to pieces on Mars' Rock, 
and the people clambered up on the beach, why did 
not that heroic minister of the Gospel, of whom we 
have all read, sit down and take care of those men on 
the beach, wrapping them in flannels, kindling fire for 
them, seeing that they got plenty of food ? Ah, he knew 
that there were others who would do that. He says: 
"Yonder are men and women freezing in the rigging of 
that wreck. Boys, launch the boatl" And now I see 
the oar-blades bend under the strong pull; but before 
they reached the rigging a woman was frozen and dead. 
She was washed off, poor thing! But he says: "There 
is a man to save;" and he cries out: "Hold on five min- 
utes longer, and I will save you. Steady! Steady! Give 
me your hand. Leap into the life-boat. Thank God, he 
is saved!" So there are those here to-night who are 
safe on the shore of God's mercy. I will not spend any 
time with them at all; but I see there are some who are 



122 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



freezing in the ringing of sin, and surrounded by peri 
lous storms. Pull away, my lads! Let us reach them I 
Alas ! one is washed off and gone. There is one more 
to be saved. Let us push out for that one. Clutch the 
rope. Oh! dying man, clutch it as with a death-grip. 
Steady, now, on the slippery places. Steady. There! 
Saved! Saved! Just as I thought. For Christ has de- 
clared that there are some still in the breakers wht 
shall come ashore. "Other sheep I have which are not 
of this fold." 

Christ commands his ministers to be fishermen; and 
when I go fishing I do not want to go among other 
churches, but into the wide world; not sitting along 
Hohokus Creek, where eight or ten other persons are 
sitting with hook and line, but, like the fishermen of 
Newfoundland, sailing off and dropping net away out- 
side, forty or fifty miles from shore. Yes, there are non- 
church-goers here who will come in. Next Sabbath 
morning and evening they will be here again, or in some 
hotter church. They are this moment being swept into 
Christian associations. Their voice will be heard in 
public prayer. They will die in peace, their bed sur- 
rounded by Christian sympathies, and be carried out by 
devout men to be buried, and on their grave be chiseled 
the words: "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the 
death of his saints." And on Resurrection day you 
will get up with the dear children you have already 
buried and with your Christian parents who have already 
won the palm. And all that grand and glorious history 
begins to-night. "Other sheep I have which are not of 
this fold." 

I remark again, the Heavenly Shepherd is going to 
find a great many of his sheep among those who are 
positive rejectors of Christianity. I do not know how 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 123 

you came to reject Christianity. It may haye been 
through hearing Theodore Parker preach, or through 
reading Kenan's "Life of Jesus," or through the infidel 
talk of some young man in your store. It may have 
oeen through the trickery of some professed Christian 
man who disgusted you with religion. I do not ask you 
how you became so; but you frankly tell me to-night 
that you do reject it. You do not believe that Christ is 
a Divine being, although you admit that he was a very 
good man. You do not believe that the Bible was in- 
spired of God, although you think that there are some 
very fine things in it. You believe that the Scriptural 
description of Eden was only an allegory. There are 
fifty things that I believe that you do not believe And 
yet yon are an accommodating man. Everybody that 
knows yon says that of you. If 1 should ask you to do 
a kindness for me, or if any one else should ask of yon a 
kindness, you would do it. Now, I have a kindness to 
ask of yon to-night. It is something that will cost yon 
nothing and will give me great delight. I want yon by 
experiment to try the power of Christ's religion. If I 
should come to you, and you were very sick, and doctors 
had given yon up, and said there was no chance for you, 
and I should take out a bottle, and say: "Here is a med- 
icine that will cure you; it has cured fifty people, and it 
will cure you." You would say: "I have no confidence 
in it." I would say: "Won't you take it to oblige me?" 
"Well," you would say, "If it's any accommodation to 
yon, I'll take it." My friend, will you be just as accom- 
modating in matters of religion? There are some of you 
who have found out that this world cannot satisfy your 
soul. Yon are like the man who told me last Sabbath 
night, after the service was over, "I have tried this 
world and found it an insufficient portion. Tell me of 
23 



124 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



something better." Ton have come to that Yon are 

sick for the need of Divine medicament. Now, I come 
and tell yon of a Physician who will cnre yon, who has 
,*ured hundreds and hundreds who were sick as you are. 
w Oh," you say, "I have no confidence in him." But 
will you not try him? Accommodate me in this matter; 
oblige me in this matter; just try him. I am very cer- 
tain he will cure you. You reply: "I have no especial 
confidence in him; but if you ask me as a matter of ac- 
commodation, introduce him." So I do introduce him 
— Christ, the Physician, who has cured more blind eyes, 
and healed more ghastly wounds, and bound up more 
broken hearts, than all- the doctors since the time of 
^Esculapius. That Divine Physician is here. Are you 
not ready to try him? Will you not, as a pure matter 
of experiment, try him, and state your case before him 
to-night? Hold nothing back from him. If you can- 
not pray, if you do not know how to pray any other way, 
say "O Lord Jesus Christ, this is a strange thing for 
me to do. I know nothing about the formulas of relig- 
ion. These Christian people have been talking so long 
about what thou canst do for me. I am ready to do 
whatever thou commandest me to do. I am ready to 
take whatever thou commandest me to take. If there 
be any power in religion, as these people say, let me 
have the advantage of it" "Will you try that experi- 
ment to-night? I do not at this point of my dis- 
course say that there is anything in religion; but I 
simply say, try it — try it. Do not take my counsel or 
the counsel of any clergyman, if you despise clergymen. 
Perhaps we may be talking professionally; perhaps we 
may be prejudiced in the matter; perhaps we may be 
hypocritical in our utterances; perhaps we may preach 
because we are paid to preach; perhaps our advice is not 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP, 



125 



worth taking. Then take the counsel of some very re- 
spectable laymen, as John Milton, the poet; as William 
Wilberforce, the statesman ; as Isaac Newton, the astron- 
omer; as Robert Boyle, the philosopher; as Locke, the 
metaphysician. They never preached or pretended to 
preach; and yet putting down, one his telescope, and 
another his parliamentary scroll, and another his electri- 
cian's wire, they all declare the adaptedness of Christ's 
religion to the wants and troubles of the world. If you 
will not take the recommendation of ministers of the 
Gospel, then take the recommendations of highly respect- 
able laymen. Oh men, sceptical and struck through 
with unrest, would you not like to have some of the 
peace which broods over oar souls to-night! I know all 
about jour doubts. I have been through them all. J 
have gone through all the curriculum. I have doubted 
whether there is a God, whether Christ is God. I have 
doubted whether the Bible was true, I have doubted 
the immortality of the soul, I have doubted my own ex 
istence, I have doubted everything; and yet, out of that 
hot desert of doubt I have come into the broad, luxuri- 
ant, sunshiny land of Gospel hope, and peace, and com- 
fort; and so I have confidence in preaching to you and 
asking you to come in. However often you may have 
spoken against the Bible, or however much you may 
have caricatured religion, step ashore from that rocking 
and tumultuous sea. If you go home to-night adhering 
to your infidelities, you will not sleep one wink. You 
do not want your children to come up with your skepti- 
cism. You cannot afford to die in that midnight dark- 
ness, can you! If you do not believe in anything else, 
you believe in- love — a father's love, a mother's love, a 
wife's love, a child's love. Then let me tell you that 
God loves you more than them all. Oh, you must coxae 



126 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



in. You will come in. The great heart of Christ aches 
to have you come in, and Jesus this very moment — 
whether you sit or stand — looks into your eyes and says: 
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." 

Again I remark, that the Heavenly Shepherd is going 
to find a great many sheep among those who have been 
flung of evil habit. It makes me mad to see Christian 
people give up a prodigal as lost. There are those who 
talk as though the grace of God were a chain of forty or 
fifty links, and after they had run out, there was nothing 
to touch the depth of a very bad case. If they were 
hunting and got off the track of the deer, they would 
look longer among the brakes and bushes for the lost 
game than they have been looking for that lost soul. 
People tell us that if a man has delirium tremens twice, 
he cannot be reclaimed; that after a woman has fallen 
from her integrity, she cannot be restored. The Bible 
has distinctly intimated that the Lord Almighty is read} 
to pardon four hundred and ninety times ; that is, sev- 
enty times seven. There are men before the throne of 
God who have wallowed in every kind of sin; but, saved 
by the grace of Jesus, and washed in his blood, they 
stand there radiant now. There are those who plunged 
into the very lowest hell of Elm-street, New York, who 
have for the tenth time been lifted up, and finally, by 
the grace of God, they stand in heaven gloriously res- 
cued by the grace promised to the chief of sinners. I 
want to tell you that God loves to take hold of a very 
bad case. When the Church casts you off, and when the 
club-room casts you off, and when society casts you off, 
and when business associates cast you off, and when 
father casts you off, and when mother casts you off, and 
when everybody casts you off, your first cry for help will 
bend the Eternal God clear down into the ditch of your 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



12? 



suffering and shame. The Good Templars cannot save 
you, although they are a grand institution. The Sons 
of Temperance cannot save you, although they are 
mighty for good. Signing the temperance pledge can- 
not save you, although I believe in it. Nothing but the 
grace of the Eternal God can save you, and that will if 
you will throw yourself on it. There is a man in this 
house to-night who said to me during the week: "Unless 
God helps me I cannot be delivered. I have tried every- 
thing, sir; but now I have got in the habit of prayer, 
and when I come to a drinking saloon I pray that God 
will take me safe past, and I pray until I am past. He 
does help me." For every man given to strong drink 
there are scores of traps set; and when he goes out on 
business to-morrow, with his bill of goods, on Broadway, 
or John-street, or Walter-street, or Fulton-avenue, or 
Atlantic-avenue, he will be in infinite peril, and no one 
but the everywhere present God can see that man through. 
Oh! they talk about the catacombs of Naples, and the 
catacombs of Eome, and the catacombs of Egypt — the 
burial places under the city where the dust of a great 
multitude lie; but I tell you Brooklyn has its catacombs, 
and New York its catacombs, and Boston its catacombs, 
and Philadelphia its catacombs. They are the under- 
ground restaurants, full of dead men's bones and all un- 
cleanness. Young man, you know it. God help you. 
There is no need of going into the art gallery to see in 
skillful sculpture that wonderful representation of a man 
and his sons wound around with serpents. There are 
families represented in this house to-night that are 
wrapped in the martyrdom of fang and scale and venom 
— a living Laocoon of ghastliness and horror. What 
tee you io do? I am not speaking into the air. I am 
talking to-night, to hundreds of men who must be saved 



128 



THE OUTSIDE 8HXEP. 



by Chrises Gospel, or never saved at all. What; are you 
going to do? Do not pnt your trust in bromide of po- 
tassium, or in Jamaica ginger, or anything that apothe- 
caries can mix. Put your trust only in the Eternal God, 
and he will see you through. Some of you do not have 
temptations every day. It is a periodic temptation that 
comes every six weeks, or every three months, when it 
8eem3 as if the powers of darkness kindle around about 
your tongue the fires of tne pit. It is well enough, at 
such a time, as some of you do, to seek medical counsel; 
but your first and most importunate cry must be to God. 
If the fiends will drag you to the slaughter, make them 
do it on your knees. O God ! now that the paroxysm of 
thirst is coming again upon that man, help him! Fling 
back into the pit of hell the fiend that assaults his soul 
this moment. Oh! my heart aches to see men go on in 
this fearful struggle without Christ. 

There are to-night in this house those whose hands so 
tremble from dissipation that they can hardly hold a 
book; and yet I have to tell you that they will yet preach 
the Gospel, and on communion days carry around the 
consecrated bread, acceptable to everybody, because of 
their holy life, and their consecrated behavior. The 
Lord is going to save you. Your home has got to be 
rebuilt. Your physical health has got to be restored. 
Your worldly business has got to be reconstructed. The 
Church of God is going to rejoice over your discipleship. 
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold." 

While I have hope for all prodigals, there are some 
people in this house to-night whom I give up as lost I 
mean those who have been church-goers all their life, 
who have maintained outward morality, but who, not- 
withstanding twenty, thirty, forty years of Christian 
advantage*, have never yielded their heart to Christ 



THE OUTSIDE SHEEP. 



129 



They are Gospel hardened. I could call their names now, 
and if they would rise up they would rise up in scores. 
Gospel hardened 1 A sermon has no more effect upon 
them than the shining of the moon on the city pave- 
ment. As Christ says: "The publicans and harlots will 
go into the kingdom of God before them." They have 
resisted all the importunity of Divine mercy, and have 
gone, during these thirty years, through most powerful 
earthquakes of religious feeling, and they are farther 
away from God than ever. After awhile they will lie 
down sick, and some day it will be told that they are 
dead. No hoj>e! 

But I turn to outsiders with a hope that thrills through 
my body and soul. "Other sheep I have which are not 
of this fold." Yon are not Gospel hardened. You have 
not heard or read many sermons during the last few 
years. As you came in to-night everything was novel, 
and all the services are suggestive of your early days. 
How sweet the opening hymn sounded in your ears, and 
how blessed it is in this place! Everything suggestive 
of heaven. You do not weep, but the shower is not far 
off. You sigh, and you have noticed that there is al- 
ways a sigh in the wind before the rain falls. There are 
those here who would give anything if they could find 
relief in tears. They 6ay: "Oh, my wasted life! Oh, 
the bitter past! Oh, the graves over which I have stum- 
bled! Whither shall I fly ? Alas for the future! Every- 
thing is dark — so dark, so dark. God help me! God 
pity rae!" Thank the Lord for that last utterance. Yon 
have begun to pray, and when a man begins to petition, 
that sets all heaven flying this way, and God steps in 
and beats back the hounds of temptation to their kennel ? 
and around about the poor wounded soul puts the covert 
of his pardoning mercy. Hark! I hear something fall. 



130 



THE OUTBIDS SHEEP. 



What was that! It is the bars of the fence around the 
sheep-fold. The shepherd lets them down, and the 
hunted sheep of the mountain bound in; some of them 
their fleece torn with the brambles, some of them their 
feet lame with the dogs; but bounding in. Thank God I 
"Other sheep I have which are not of this fold.' 9 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFS. 



131 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ACIDS OP THIS LIFE. 

When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar. — John xix: 80. 

The brigands of Jerusalem had done their work. It 
was almost sundown, and Jesus was dying. Persons in 
crucifixion often lingered on from day to day — crying, 
begging, and cursing; but Christ had been exhausted by 
years of maltreatment. Pillowless, poorly fed, flogged 
— as bent over and tied to a low post, his bare back was 
inflamed with the scourges intersticed with pieces of 
lead and bone — and now for whole hours, the weight of 
his body hung on delicate tendons, and, according to cus- 
tom, a violent stroke under the armpits had been given 
by the executioner. Dizzy, swooning, nauseated, fever- 
ish — a world of agony is compressed in the two words: 
M I thirst !" O skies of Judea, let a drop of rain strike 
on his burning tongue! O world, with rolling rivers, 
and sparkling lakes, and spraying fountains, give Jesus 
something to drink! If there be any pity in earth, or 
heaven, or hell, let it now be demonstrated in behalf of 
this royal sufferer. The wealthy women of J erusalem 
used to have a fund of money with which they provided 
wine for those people who died in crucifixion — a power- 
ful opiate to deaden the pain; but Christ would not take 
it. He wanted to die sober, and so he refused the wine. 
But afterward they go to a cup of vinegar, and soak a 
sponge in it, and put it on a stick of hyssop, and then 
press it against the hot lips of Christ You say the 



132 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



wine was an anaesthetic, and intended to relieve or deaden 
the pain. But the vinegar was an insult. I am dis- 
posed to adopt the theory of the old English commenta- 
tors, who believed that instead of its being an opiate to 
soothe, it was vinegar to insult. Malaga and Burgundy 
for grand dukes and duchesses, and costly wines from 
royal vats for bloated imperials; but stinging acids for 
a dying Christ. He took the vinegar. 

In some lives the saccharine seems to predominate. 
Life in sunshine on a bank of flowers. A thousand 
hands to clap approval. In December or in January, 
looking across their table, they see all their family pres- 
ent. Health rubicund. Skies flamboyant. Days resil- 
ient. But in a great many cases there are not so many 
sugars as acids. The annoyances, and the vexations, and 
the disappointments of life overpower the successes. 
There is a gravel in almost every shoe. An Arabian 
legend says that there was a worm in Solomon's staff, 
gnawing its strength away; and there is a weak spot in 
every earthly support that a man leans on. King George 
of England forgot all the grandeurs of his throne be- 
cause, one day in an interview, Beau Brummell called 
him by his first name, and addressed him as a servant, 
crying: "George, ring the belli" Miss Langdon, hon- 
ored all the world over for her poetic genius, is so wor- 
ried with the evil reports set afloat regarding her, that 
she is found dead, with an empty bottle of prussic acid 
in her hand. Goldsmith said that his life was a wretched 
being, and that all that want and contempt could bring to 
it had been brought, and cries out: "What, then, is there 
formidable in a jail?' ' Correggio's fine painting is hung 
up for a tavern sign. Hogarth cannot sell his best paint- 
ings except through a raffle. Andrew Delsart makes the 
great fresco in the Church of the Annunciata, at Flor- 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



133 



ence, and gets for pay a sack of corn; and there are an- 
noyances and vexations in high places as well as in low 
places, showing that in a great many lives the sours are 
greater than the sweets. "When Jesus, therefore, had 
received the vinegar." 

It is absurd to suppose that a man who has always 
been well can sympathize with those who are sick; or 
that one who has always been honored can appreciate the 
sorrow of those who are despised; or that one who has 
been born to a great fortune can understand the distress 
and the straits of those who are destitute. The fact that 
Christ himself took the vinegar makes him able to sym- 
pathize to-day and forever with all those whose cup is 
filled with sharp acids of this life. He took the vinegar! 

In the first place, there is the sourness of betrayal. 
The treachery of Judas hurt Christ's feelings more than 
all the friendship of his disciples did him good. You 
have had many friends; but there was oue friend upon 
whom you put especial stress. You feasted him. You 
loaned him money. You befriended him in the dark 
passes of life, when he especially needed a friend. After- 
ward, he turned upon you, and he took advantage of 
your former intimacies. He wrote against you. He 
talked against you. He microscopized your faults. He 
flung contempt at you when you ought to have received 
from him nothing but gratitude. At first, you could 
not sleep at night. Then you went about with a sense 
of having been stung. That difficulty will never Be 
healed, for though mutual friends may arbitrate in the 
matter until you shall shake hands, the old cordiality 
will never come back. Now, I commend to all such the 
sympathy of a betrayed Christ! Why, they soltf him 
for less than our twenty dollars I They all forsooi him. 



134 



THE AOIDi OF THIS LIFE. 



and fled. They cut him to the quick. He drank that 
cup of betrayal to the dregs. He took the vinegar 1 

There is also the sourness of pain. There are some 
of you who have not seen a well day for many years. 
By keeping out of draughts, and by carefully studying 
dietetics, you continue to this time; but oh, the head- 
aches, and the sideaches, and the backaches, and the 
heartaches which have been your accompaniment all the 
way through! You have struggled under a heavy mort- 
gage of physical disabilities; and instead of the placid- 
ity that once characterized you, it is now only with great 
effort that you keep away from irritability and sharp 
retort. Difficulties of respiration, of digestion, of loco- 
motion, make up the great obstacle in your life, and you 
tug and sweat along the pathway, and wonder when the 
exhaustion will end. My friends, the brightest crowns 
in heaven will not be given to those who, in stirrups, 
dashed to the cavalry charge, while the general applauded, 
and the sound of clashing sabres rang through the land ; 
but the brightest crowns in heaven, I believe, will be 
given to those who trudged on amid chronic ailments 
which unnerved their strength, yet all the time main- 
taining their faith in God. It is comparatively easy to 
fight in a regiment of a thousand men, charging up the 
parapets to the sound of martial music; but it is not so 
easy to endure when no one but the nurse and the doctor 
are the witnesses of the Christian fortitude. Besides 
that, you never had any pains worse than Christ's. The 
sharpnesses that stung through his brain, through his 
hands, through his feet, through his heart, were as great 
as yours certainly. He was as sick and as weary. Not 
a nerve, or muscle, or ligament escaped. All the pangs 
of all the nations of all the ages compressed into one 
sour ©up. He took the vinegar! 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



135 



There is also the sourness of poverty. Your income 
4oes not meet jour outgoings, and that always gives an 
honest man anxiety. There is no sign of destitution 
about you — pleasant appearance, and a cheerful home for 
you; but God only knows what a time you have had to 
manage your private finances. Just as the bills run up, 
the wages seem to run down. But you are not the only 
one who has not been paid for hard work. The great 
Wilkie sold his celebrated piece — "The Blind Fiddler" — 
for fifty guineas, although afterwards it brought its 
thousands. The world hangs in admiration over the 
sketch of Gainsborough, yet that very sketch hung for 
years in the shop- window because there was not any 
purchaser. Oliver Goldsmith sold his "Vicar of Wake- 
field" for a few pounds, in order to keep the bailiff out of 
the door; and the vast majority of men in all occupa- 
tions and professions are not fully paid for their work. 
You may say nothing, but life to you is a hard push ; 
and when you sit down with your wife and talk over the 
expenses, you both rise up discouraged. You abridge 
here, and you abridge there, and you get things snug for 
smooth sailings, and lo! suddenly there is a large doc- 
tor's bill to pay, or you have lost your pocket-book, or 
some creditor has failed, and you are thrown a-beam end 
Well, brother, you are in glorious company. Christ 
owned not the house in which he stopped, or the colt on 
which he rode, or the boat in which he sailed. He lived 
in a borrowed house ; he was buried in a borrowed grave. 
Exposed to all kinds of weather, yet he had only one 
suit of clothes. He breakfasted in the morning, and no 
one could possibly tell where he could get anything to 
eat before night. He would have been pronounced a 
financial failure. He had to perform a miracle to get 
money to pay a tax-bill. Not a dollar did he own. Pri- 



136 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



vation of domesticity; privation of nutritious food; 
privation of a comfortable couch on which to sleep; pri- 
vation of all worldly resources. The kings of the earth 
had chased chalices out of which to drink; but Christ 
had nothing but a plain cup set before him, and it was 
very sharp, and it was very sour. He took the vinegar. 

There also is the sourness of bereavement. There 
were years that passed along before your family circle 
was invaded by death; but the momeut the charmed 
circle was broken, everything seemed to dissolve. Hardly 
have you put the black apparel in the wardrobe, before 
you have again to take it out. Great and rapid changes 
in your family record. You got the house and rejoiced 
in it, but the charm was gone as soon as the crape hung 
on the door-bell. The one upon whom you most de- 
pended was taken away from you. A cold marble slab 
lies on your heart to-day. Once, as the children romped 
through the house, yon put your hand over your aching 
head, and 6aid: "Ob, if I could only have it still." Oh, 
it is too still now. You lost your patience when the 
tops, and the strings, and the shells were left amid floor; 
but oh, you would be willing to have the trinkets scat- 
tered all over the floor again, if they were scattered by 
the same hands. With what a ruthless ploughshare be- 
reavement rips up the heart. But Jesus knows ail about 
that. You cannot tell him anything new in regard to 
bereavement. He had only a few friends, and when he 
lost one it brought tears to his eyes. Lazarus had often 
entertained him at his house. Now Lazarus is dead 
and buried, and Christ breaks down with emotion — the 
convulsion of grief shuddering through all the ages of 
bereavement. Christ knows what it is to go through 
the house missing a familiar inmate. Christ knowt 
what it is to see an unoccupied place at the table. Were 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



137 



there not four of them — Mary, and Martha, and Christ, 
and Lazarus? Four of them. But where is Lazarus? 
Lonely and afflicted Christ, his great loving eyes filled 
with tears, which drop from eye to cheek, and from cheek 
to beard, and from beard to robe, and from robe to floor. 
Oh, yes, yes, he knows all about the loneliness and the 
heartbreak. He took the vinegar! 

Then there is the sourness of the death-hour. What- 
ever else we may escape, that acid- sponge will be pressed 
to our lips. I sometimes have a curiosity to know how 
I will behave when I come to die. Whether I will be 
calm or excited — whether I will be filled with reminis- 
cence or with anticipation. I cannot say. But come to 
the point, I must and you must In the six thousand years 
that have passed, only two persons have got into the 
eternal world without death, and I do not suppose that 
God is going to send a carriage for us with horses of 
flame, to draw us up the steeps of heaven; but I sap- 
pose we will have to go like the preceding generations. 
An officer from the future world will knock at the door 
of our heart and serve on us the writ of ejectment, and 
we will have to surrender. And we will wake up after 
these autumnal, and wintry, and vernal, and summery 
glories have vanished from our vision — we will wake up 
into a realm which has only one season, and that the 
season of everlasting love. But you say: "I don't want 
to break out from my present associations. It is so chilly 
and so damp to go down the stairs of that vault. I 
don't want anything drawn so tightly over my eyes. If 
there were only some way of breaking through the par- 
tition between worlds without tearing this body all to 
shreds. I wonder if the surgeons and the doctors can- 
not compound a mixture by which this body and soul 
can all the time be kept together? Is there no escape 



138 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



from this separation V* None; absolutely none. So 1 
look over this audience to-day — the vast majority of you 
seeming in good health and spirits — and yet I realize 
that in a short time, all of us will be gone — gone from 
earth, and gone for ever. A great many men tumble 
through the gates of the future, as it were, and we do 
not know where they have gone, and they only add gloom 
and mystery to the passage; but Jesus Christ so might- 
ily stormed the gates of that future world, that they 
have never since been closely shut. Christ knows what 
it is to leave this world, of the beauty of which he was 
more appreciative than we ever could be. He knows 
the exquisiteness of the phosphorescence of the sea; he 
trod it. He knows the glories of the midnight heavens; 
for they were the spangled canopy of his wilderness pil- 
low. He knows about the lilies; he twisted them into 
his sermon. He knows about the fowls of the air; they 
whirred their way through his discourse. He knows 
about the sorrows of leaving this beautiful world. Not 
a taper was kindled in the darkness. He died physician- 
less. He died in cold sweat, and dizziness, and hem- 
orrhage, and agony that have put him in sympathy with 
all the dying. He goes through Christendom, and he 
gathers up the stings out of all the death pillows, and 
he puts them under his own neck and head. He gathers 
on his own tongue the burning thirsts of many genera- 
tions. The sponge is soaked in the sorrows of all those 
who have died in their beds as well as soaked in the sor- 
rows of all those who perished in icy or fiery martyrdom. 
While heaven was pitying, and earth was mocking, and 
hell was deriding, he took the vinegar. 

To all those in this audience to whom life has been an 
acerbity — a dose they could not swallow, a draught that 
set their teeth on edge and a-rasping — I preach the om- 



THB AOEDS OF THIS LIFK. 



1^9 



nipotent sympathy of Jesus Christ The sister of Her- 
schel the astronomer used to help him in his work. 
He got all the credit ; she got none. She used to spend 
much of her time polishing the telescopes through which 
he brought the distant worlds nigh, and it is my ambi- 
tion now, this hour, to clear the lens of your spiritual 
vision, so that looking through the dark night of your 
earthly troubles you may behold the glorious constella- 
tion of a Savior's mercy and a Savior's love. Oh, my 
friends, do not try to carry all your ills alone. Do not 
put your poor shoulder under the Appenines when the 
Almighty Christ is ready to lift up all your burdens. 
When you have a trouble of any kind, you rush this 
way, and that way ; and you wonder what this man will 
say about it, and what that man will say about it; and 
you try this prescription, and that prescription, and the 
other prescription. Oh, why do you not go straight to 
the heart of Christ, knowing that for our own sinning 
and suffering race he took the vinegar! 

There was a vessel that had been tossed on the seas 
tor a great many weeks, and been disabled, and the sup- 
ply of water gave out, and the crew were dying of thirst 
After many days, they saw a sail against the sky. They 
signaled it When the vessel came nearer, the people 
on the suffering ship cried to the captain of the other 
vessel: "Send us some water. We are dying for lack of 
water." And the captain on the vessel that was hailed 
responded: "Dip your buckets where you are. You are 
In the mouth of the Amazon, and there are scores of 
miles of fresh water all around about you, and hundreds 
of feet deep." And then they dropped their buckets 
over the side of the vessel, and brought up the clear, 
bright, fresh water, and put out the fire of their thirst 
So I hail you to-day, after a long and perilous voyage, 
24 



140 



THE ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



thirsting as yon are for pardon, and thirsting for com- 
fort, and thirsting for eternal life; and I ask yon, What is 
the use of your going in that death-struck stale, while 
all around you is the deep, clear, wide, sparkling flood 
of God's sympathetic mercy? Oh, dip your buckets, and 
drink, and live forever. "Whosoever will, let him come 
and take of the water of life freely." 

Yet my utterance is almost choked at the thought that 
there are people here who will refuse this Divine sym- 
pathy; and they will try to fight their own battles, and 
drink their own vinegar, and carry their own burdens; 
and their life, instead of being a triumphal march from 
victory to victory, will be a hobbling-on from defeat to 
defeat, until they make final surrender to retributive 
disaster. Oh, I wish I could this morning gather up in 
mine arms all the woes of men and women — all their 
heartaches — all their disappointments — all their chagrins 
— and just take them right to the feet of a sympathizing 
Jesus. He took the vinegar. 

Nana Sahib, after he had lost his last battle in India, 
fell back into the jungles of Iheri — jungles so full of 
malaria that no mortal can live there. He carried with 
him also a ruby of great lustre and of great value. He 
died in those jungles; his body was never found, and 
the ruby has never yet been discovered. And I fear that 
to-day there are some who will fall back from this sub- 
ject into the sickening, killing jungles of their sin, car- 
rying a gem of infinite value — a priceless soul — to be 
lost forever. Oh, that that ruby might flash in the eter- 
nal coronation. But no. There are some, I fear, in this 
audience who turn away from this offered mercy, and 
comfort, and Divine sympathy; notwithstanding that 
Christ, for all who would accept his grace, trudged the 
long way, and suffered the lacerating thongs, and received 



THJfi ACIDS OF THIS LIFE. 



141 



in his face the expectorations of the filthy mob, and for 
the guilty, and the discouraged, and the discomforted of 
the race, took the vinegar. May God Almighty break 
the infatuation, and lead you out into the strong hope* 
and the good cheer, and the glorious sunshine of this 
triumphant Gospel 1 



142 



THE DIVISION OF StOTUk 



CHAPTER XL 

THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 

In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he ghall di 
ride the spoil. — Gen. xlix : 27. 

There is in this chapter such an affluence of simile 
and allegory, such a mingling of metaphors, that there 
are a thousand thoughts in it not on the surface. Old 
Jacob, dying, is telling the fortunes of his children. 
He prophesies the devouring propensities of Benjamin 
and his descendants. With his dim old eyes he looks 
off and sees the hunters going out to the fields, ranging 
them all day, and at nightfall coming home, the game 
slung over the shoulder, and reaching the door of the 
tent, the hunters begin to distribute the game, and one 
takes a coney, and another a rabbit, and another a roe. 
"In the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night 
he shall divide the spoil." Or it may be a reference to 
the habits of wild beasts that slay their prey, and then 
drag it back to the cave or lair, and divide it among the 
young. 

There is nothing more fascinating than the life of a 
hunter. On a certain day in all England you can hear 
the crack of the sportsman's gun, because grouse hunt- 
ing has begun; and every man that can afford the time 
and ammunition, and can draw a bead, starts for the 
fields. On the 20th of October our woods and forests 
will resound with the shock of firearms, and will be 
tracked of pointers and setters, because the quail will 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS, 



143 



then be a lawful prize for the sportsman. Xenophon 
grew eloquent in regard to the art of hunting. In the 
far East, people, elephant-mounted, chase the tiger. The 
American Indian darts his arrow at the buffalo until the 
frightened herd tumble over the rocks. European nobles 
are often found in the fox-chase and at the stag-hunt. 
Francis I. was called the father of hunting. Moses de- 
clares of Nimrod: "He was a mighty hunter before the 
Lord." Therefore, in all ages of the world, the imag- 
ery of my text ought to be suggestive, whether it means 
a wolf after a fox, or a man after a lion. "In the morn- 
ing he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall di- 
vide the spoils." 

I take my text, in the first place, as descriptive of 
those people who in the morning of their life give them- 
selves up to hunting the world, but afterward, by the 
grace of God, in the evening of their life divide among 
themselves the spoils of Christian character. There are 
aged Christian men and women in this house who, if 
they gave testimony, would tell you that in the morning 
of their life they were after the world as intense as a 
hound after a hare, or as a falcon swoops upon a gazelle. 
They wanted the world's plaudits and the world's gains. 
They felt that if they could get this world they would 
have everything. Some of them started out for the 
pleasures of the world. They thought that the man who 
laughed loudest was happiest. They tried repartee, and 
conundrum, and burlesque, and madrigal. They thought 
they would like to be Tom Hoods, or Charles Lambs, or 
Edgar A. Poes. They mingled wine, and music, and 
the spectacular. They were worshippers of the harle- 
quin, and the merry Andrew, and the buffoon, and the 
jester. Life was to them foam, and bubble, and cachin- 
nation, and roystering, and grimace. They were so full 



144 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



of glee they could hardly repress their mirth, even on 
solemn occasions, and they came near bursting out hilar- 
iously even at the burial, because there was something 
so dolorous in the tone or countenance of the undertaker. 
After awhile misfortune struck them hard on the back. 
They found there was something they could not laugh 
at. Under their late hours their health gave way, or 
there was a death in the house. Of every green thing 
their soul was exfoliated. They found out that life was 
more than a joke. From the heart of God there blazed 
into their soul an earnestness they had never felt before. 
They awoke to their sinfulness and their immortality, 
and here they sit to-night, at sixty or seventy years of 
age, as appreciative of all innocent mirth as they ever 
were, but they are bent on a style of satisfaction which 
in early life they never hunted ; the evening of their 
days brighter than the morning. In the morning they 
devoured the prey, but at night they divided the spoils. 

Then there are others who started out for financial 
success. They see how limber the rim of a man's hat is 
when he bows down before some one transpicuous. They 
felt they would like to see how the world looked from 
the window of a three thousand dollar turn-out. They 
thought they would like to have the morning sunlight 
tangled in the head-gear of a dashing span. They 
wanted the bridges in the park to resound under the 
rataplan of their swift hoofs. They wanted a gilded 
baldrick, and so they started on the dollar hunt. They 
chased it up one street and chased it down another. 
They followed it when it burrowed in the cellar. They 
treed it in the roof. Wherever a dollar was expected to 
be, they were. They chased it across the ocean. They 
chased it across the land. They stopped not for the 
night. Hearing that dollar, even in the darkness, 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



145 



thrilled them as an Adirondack sportsman is thrilled at 
midnight bj a loon's laugh. They chased that dollar to 
the money -vault. They chased it to the government 
treasury. They routed it from under the counter. All 
the hounds were out — all the pointers and the setters. 
They leaped the hedges for that dollar, and they cried : 
"Hark away! a dollar I a dollar!" And when at last 
they came upon it and had actually captured it, their 
excitement was like that of a falconer who has success- 
fully flung his first hawk. In the morning of their life, 
oh, how they devoured the prey! But there came a bet- 
ter time to their soul. They found out that an immoral 
nature cannot live on "greenbacks." They took up a 
Northern Pacific bond, and there was a hole in it through 
which they could look into the uncertainty of all earthly 
treasures. They saw some Ralston, living at the rate of 
twenty-five thousand dollars a month, leaping from San 
Francisco wharf because he could not continue to live at 
the same ratio. They saw the wizen and paralytic bank- 
ers who had changed their souls into molten gold 
stamped with the image of the earth, earthy. They saw 
some great souls by avarice turned into homunculi, and 
they said to themselves: "I will seek after higher treas- 
ure." From that time they did not care whether they 
walked or rode, if Christ walked with them; nor whether 
they lived in a mansion or in a hut, if they dwelt under 
the shadow of the Almighty; nor whether they were 
robed in French broadcloth or in a homespun, if they 
had the robe of the Savior's righteousness; nor whether 
they were sandalled with morocco or calf-skin, if they 
were shod with the preparation of the gospel. Now you 
see peace on their countenance. Now that man says: 
"What a fool I was to be enchanted with this world. 
Why, I have more satisfaction in five mim^s in the 



146 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



service of God than I had in all the first years of my 
life while I was gain getting. I like this evening of my 
day a great deal better than I did the morning. In the 
morning I greedily devoured the prey; but now it is 
evening, and I am gloriously dividing the spoil." 

My friends, this world is a poor thing to hunt. It is 
healthful to go out in the woods and hunt. It rekindles 
the lustre of the eye. It strikes the brown of the au- 
tumnal leaf into the cheek. It gives to the rheumatic 
limbs a strength to leap like the roe. Christopher 
North's pet gun, the mucklc ■ ounted-Meg, going off in 
the summer in the forests, ) I its echo in the winter- 
time in the eloquence that r £ through the university 
halls of Edinburgh. It is L thy to go hunting in the 
fields; but I tell you that it belittling and bedwarfing 
and belaming for a man to bunt this world. The ham- 
mer comes down on the gun c*p, and the barrel explodes 
and kills you instead of that which you are pursuing. 
When you turn out to hunt the world, the world turns 
out to hunt you; and as many a sportsman aiming his 
gun at a panther's heart has gone down under the striped 
claws, so, while you have been attempting to devour 
this world, the world has been devouring you. So it 
was with Lord Byron. So it was with Coleridge. So it 
was with Catherine of Eussia. Ilenry II. went out 
hunting for this world, and its lances struck through his 
heart. Francis I. aimed at the world, but the assassin's 
dagger put an end to his ambition and his life with one 
stroke. Mary Queen of Scots wrote on the window of 
her castle: 

"From the top of all my trust , 
Mishap hath laid me in the dust*' 

The Queen Dowager of Navarre was offered for hex 
wedding d&/ a costly and beautiful pair of gloves, and 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



147 



she put them on; but they were poisoned gloves, and 
they took her life. Better a bare hand of cold privation 
than a warm and poisoned glove of ruinous success. 
"Oh," says some young man in the audience, "I believe 
what you are preaching. I am going to do that very 
thing. In the morning of my life I am going to devour 
the prey, and in the evening I shall divide the spoils of 
Christian character. I only want a little while to sow 
my wild oats, and then I will be good." Young man, 
did you ever take the census of all the old people? How 
many old people are there in your house? One, two, or 
none? How many in a vast assemblage like this? Only 
here and there a gray head, like the patches of snow here 
and there in the fields on a late April day. The fact is 
that the tides of the years are so strong, that men go 
down under them before they get to be sixty, before they 
get to be fifty, before they get to be forty, before they 
get to be thirty; and if you, my young brother, resolve 
now that you will spend the morning of your days in 
devouring the prey, the probability is that you will 
never divide the spoils in the evening hour. He who 
postpones until old age the religion of Jesus Christ, post- 
pones it forever. Where are the men who, thirty years 
ago, resolved to become Christians in old age, putting it 
off a certain number of years? They are in the lost 
m>rld to-night. They never got to be old. The railroad 
collision, ^r the steamboat explosion, or the slip on the 
ice, or the falling ladder, or the sudden cold put an end 
to their opportunities. They have never had an oppor- 
tunity since, and never will have an opportunity again. 
They locked the door of heaven against their soul, and they 
threw away the key ; and if they could to-night break 
jail and come up shrieking to this audience, I do not 
think they would take two minutes to persuade us all to 



148 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



repentance. They chased the world, and they died in 
the chase. The wounded tiger turned on them. They 
failed to take the game that they pursued. Mounted on 
a swift courser, they leaped the hedge, but the courser 
fell on them and crushed them. Proposing to barter 
their soul for the world, they lost both and got neither. 

While this is an encouragement to old people who are 
to-night unpardoned, it is no encouragement to the 
young who are putting off the day of grace. This doc- 
trine that the old may be repentant is to be taken cau- 
tiously. It is medicine that kills or cures. The same 
medicine, given to different patients, in one case it saves 
life, and in the other it destroys it. This possibility of 
repentance at the close of life may cure the old man 
while it kills the young. Be cautious in taking it 

Again: my subject is descriptive of those who come 
to a sudden and a radical change. You have noticed 
how short a time it is from morning to night — only 
seven or eight hours. You know that the day has a very 
brief life. Its heart beats twenty-four times, and then 
it is dead. How quick this transition in the character 
of these Benjaminites! "In the morning they shall de- 
vour the prey, and at night they shall divide the spoils." 
Is it possible that there shall be such a transformation 
in any of our characters! Yes, a man may be at seven 
o'clock in the morning an all-devouring worldling, and 
at seven o'clock at night he may be a peaceful, distribu- 
tive Christian. Conversion is instantaneous. A man 
passes into the kingdom of God quicker than down the 
sky runs zig-zag lightning. A man may be anxious 
about his soul for a great many years ; that does not make 
him a Christian. A man may pray a great while; that 
does not make him a Christian. A man may resolve on 
the reformation of his character, and have that resolu- 




CHRIST'S ASCENSION TO HEAVEN FROM THE MOUNT OF OLIVES. 



"And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was 
taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight."— Acts 1. 9. 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS, 



149 



tion going on a great while; that does not make him a 
Christian. But the very instant when he flings his sonl 
on the mercy of Jesns Christ, that instant is lustration, 
emancipation, resurrection. Up to that point he is going 
in the wrong direction; after that point he is going in 
the right direction. Before that moment he is a child 
of sin; after that moment he is a child of God. Before 
that moment hellward; after that moment heavenward. 
Before that moment devouring the prey; after that mo- 
ment dividing the spoil. Five minutes is as good as 
five years. My hearer, you know very well that the best 
things you have done you have done in a flash. You 
made up your mind in an instant to buy, or to sell, or to 
invest, or to stop, or to start. If you had missed that 
one chance, you would have missed it forever. Now 
just as precipitate, and quick, and spontaneous will be 
the ransom of your soul. This morning you were mak- 
ing a calculation. You got on the track of some finan- 
cial or social game. With your pen or pencil you were 
pursuing it. This very morning you were devouring the 
prey; but to-night you are in a different mood. You 
find that all heaven is offered you. You wonder how 
you can get it for yourself and for your family. You 
wonder what resources it will give you now and here- 
after. You are dividing peace, and comfort, and satis- 
faction, and Christian reward in your soul. You are 
dividing the spoil. 

Last Sabbath-night, at the close of the service, I said 
to some persons: "When did you first become serious 
about your soul?" And they told me: "To-night." And 
I said to others: "When did you give your heart to 
God?" And they said: "To-night" And I said to still 
others: "When did you resolve to serve the Lord all the 
days of your life?" And they said: "To-night" I saw 



150 



THE DIVISION OP SPOILS. 



by the gaiety of their apparel that when the grace of 
God struck them they were devouring the prey; but I 
saw also, in the flood of joyful tears, and in the kindling 
raptures on their brow, and in their exhilarant and trans- 
porting utterances, that they were dividing the spoil. If 
any of you were in this building when these lights were 
struck to-night, you know that with one touch of elec- 
tricity they all blazed. Oh, I would to God that the 
darkness of your souls might be broken up, and that by 
one quick, overwhelming, instantaneous flash of illumin- 
ation you might be brought into the light and the lib- 
erty of the sons of God! 

You see that religion is a different thing from what 
some of you people supposed. You thought it was de- 
cadence; you thought religion was maceration; you 
thought it was highway robbery; that it struck one 
down and left him half dead; that it plucked out the 
eyes; that it plucked out the plumes of the soul; that 
it broke the wing and crushed the beak as it came claw- 
ing with its black talons through the air. No, that is 
not religion. What is religion? It is dividing the spoils. 
It is taking a defenceless soul and panoplying it for 
eternal conquest. It is the distribution of prizes by the 
king's hand, every medal stamped with a coronation. 
It is an exhilaration, an expansion. It is imparadisa- 
tion. It is enthronement. Religion makes a man mas- 
ter of earth, and death, and hell. It goes forth to gather 
the medals of victory won by Prince Emanuel, and the 
diadems of heaven, and the glories of realms terrestrial, 
and celestial, and then, after ranging all worlds for every- 
thing that is resplendent, it divides the spoil. What was it 
that James Turner, the famous English evangelist, was do- 
ing when in his dying moment he said: "Christ is all! 
Christ is all!" Why, he was entering into light; he was 



THE DIVISION OF 8POIM. 



151 



rounding the Oape of Good Hope; he was dividing the 
spoil. What was the aged Christian Quakeress doing when 
at eighty years of age she arose in the meeting one day and 
said: "The time of my departure is come. My grave 
clothes are falling off" f She was dividing the spoil. 

"She longed with wings to fly away, 
And mix with that eternal day." 

What is Daniel now doing, the lion tamer f and Elijah 
who was drawn by the flaming coursers? and Paul, the 
rattling of whose chains made kings quake! and all the 
other victims of flood, and fire, and wreck, and guillotine 
— where are they? Dividing the spoil. 

"Ten thousand times ten thousand, 

In sparkling raiment bright, 
The armies of the ransomed saints 
Throng up the steeps of light 

* Tis finished, all is finished, 

Their fight with death and sin; 
Lift high your golden gates, 
And let the victors in." 

Oh, what a grand thing it is to be a Christian! We 
begin to-night to divide the spoil, but the distribution 
will not be completed to all eternity. There is a poverty- 
struck soul, there is a business-despoiled soul, there is a 
sin-struck soul, there is a bereaved soul — why do you 
not come and get the spoils of Christian character, the 
comfort, the joy, the peace, the salvation that I am sent 
to offer you in my Master's name? Though your knees 
knock together in weakness, though your hand tremble 
in fear, though your eyes rain tears of uncontrollable 
weeping — come and get the spoils. Kest for all the 
weary. Pardon for all the guilty. Labor for all the 
bestormed. Life for all the dead. I verily believe that 
there are some who have come in here outcast because 



152 



THE DIVISION OF SPOILS. 



the world is against them, and because they feel God if 
against them, who will go away to-night, saying: 

"I came to Jesus as I was, 
Weary and worn and sad ; 
I found in him a resting place, 
And he has made me glad." 

Though you came in children of the world, you may 
go away heirs of heaven. Though this very autumnal 
morning you were devouring the prey, to-night, all 
worlds witnessing, you may divide the spoil 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



153 



CHAPTEE XII. 

THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 

Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of Israel : 
for the Philistines said, lest the Hebrews make them swords or spears. 
But all the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen every 
man his share, and his coulter, and his axe, and his mattock. Yet 
they had a file for the mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the 
forks, and for the axes, and to sharpen the goads. — I. Samuel 
xiii: 19-21. 

What a scalding subjugation for the Israelites! The 
Philistines had carried off all the blacksmiths, and torn 
down all the blacksmiths' shops, and abolished the black- 
smith's trade in the land of Israel. The Philistines 
would not even allow these parties to work their valua- 
ble mines of brass and iron, nor might they make any 
swords or spears. There were only two swords left in 
all the land. Yea, these Philistines went on until they 
had taken all the grindstones from the land of Israel, so 
that if an Israelitish farmer wanted to sharpen his 
plough or his axe, he had to go over to the garrison of 
the Philistines to get it done. There was only one 
sharpening instrument left in the land, and that was a 
file. The farmers and the mechanics having nothing to 
whet up the coulter, and the goad, and the pickaxe, save 
a simple file, industry was hindered, and work practically 
disgraced. The great idea of these Philistines was to 
keep the Israelites disarmed. They might get iron out 
of the hills to make swords of, but they would not have 
any blacksmiths to weld this iron. If they got the iron 
welded, they would have no grindstones on which to 



154 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



bring the instruments of agriculture or the military 
weapons up to an edge. Oh, you poor, weaponless Israel- 
ites, reduced to a file, how I pity you! But these Phil- 
istines were not for ever to keep their heel on the neck 
of God's children. Jonathan, on his hands and knees, 
climbs up a great rock heyond which were the Philis- 
tines; and his armor-bearer, on his hands and knees, 
climbs up the same rock, and these two men, with their 
two swords, hew to pieces the Philistines, the Lord throw- 
ing a great terror upon them. So it was then ; so it is 
now. Two men of God on their knees, mightier than a 
Philistine host on their feet. 

I learn first from this subject, how dangerous it is for 
the Church of God to allow its weapons to stay in the 
hands of its enemies. These Israelites might again and 
again have obtained a supply of swords and weapons, as 
for instance when they took the spoils of the Ammon- 
ites; but these Israelites seemed content to have no 
swords, no spears, no blacksmiths, no grindstones, no 
active iron mines, until it was too late for them to make 
any resistance. I see the farmers tugging along with 
their pickaxes and ploughs, and I say: "Where are you 
going with those things?" They say: "Oh, we are going 
over to the garrison of the Philistines to get these things 
sharpened." I say: "You foolish men, why don't you 
sharpen them at home!" "Oh," they say, "the black- 
smiths' shops are all torn down, and we have nothing 
left us but a file." 

So it is in the Church of Jesus Christ to-day. We are 
too willing to give up our weapons to the enemy. The 
world boasts that it has gobbled up the schools, and the 
colleges, and the arts, and the sciences, and the literature, 
and the printing press. Infidelity is making a mighty 
attempt to get all our weapons in its hand and then to 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 155 

keep them. Yon know it 1b making this boast all the 
time; and after a while, when the great battle between 
sin and righteousness has opened, if we do not look out 
we will be as badly off as these Israelites, without any 
awords to fight with, and without any sharpening instru- 
ments. I call upon the superintendents of literary in- 
stitutions to see to it that the men who go into the class- 
rooms to stand beside the Leyden jars, and the electric 
batteries, and the microscopes and telescopes, be children 
of God, not Philistines. The Carlylian, Emerson, and 
Tyndallean thinkers of this day are trying to get all the 
intellectual weapons of this century in their own grasp. 
What we want is scientific Christians to capture the sci- 
ence, and scholastic Christians to capture the scholar- 
ship, and philosophic Christians to capture the philoso- 
phy, and lecturing Christians, to take back the lecturing 
platform. We want to send out against Schenkel and 
Strauss and Kenan, a Theodore Christlieb of Bonn; and 
against the infidel scientists of the day, a God- worship- 
ing Silliman and Hitchcock and Agassiz. We want to 
capture all the philosophical apparatus, and swing around 
the telescopes on the swivel, until through them we can 
see the morning star of the Redeemer, and with mineral- 
ogical hammer discover the "Rock of ages," and amid 
the flora of the realms find the "Rose of Sharon and the 
lily of the valley." We want a clergy learned enough 
to discourse of the human eye, showing it to be a micro- 
scope and telescope in one instrument, with eight hun- 
dred wonderful contrivances, and lids closing 30,000 or 
40,000 times a day ; all its muscles and nerves and bones 
showing the infinite skill of an infinite God, and then 
winding up with the peroration: "He that formed the 
eye, shall he not see!" And then we want to discourse 
about the human ear, its wonderful integuments, mem- 



156 



THE BLACKSMITHS' OAPXiyiTT. 



branes, and vibration, and its chain of small bones, and 
its auditory nerve, closing with the question: "He that 
planted the ear, shall he not hear?" And we want some 
one able to expound the first chapter of Genesis, bring- 
ing to it the geology and the astronomy of the world, 
until, as Job suggested, "the stones of the field shall be 
in league" with the truth, and "the stars in their course 
shall fight against Sisera." Oh, Church of God, go out 
and recapture these weapons. Let men of God go out 
and take possession of the platform. Let the debauched 
printing-press of this country be recaptured for Christ, 
and the reporters, and the type-setters, and the editors, 
and publishers be made to swear allegiance to the Lord 
God of truth. Ah, my friend, that day must come, and 
if the great body of Christian men have not the faith, 
or the courage, or the consecration to do it, then let 
some Jonathan, on his busy hands and on his praying 
knees, climb up on the rock of hindrance, and in the 
name of the Lord God of Israel slash to pieces those lit- 
erary Philistines. If these men will not be converted 
to God, then they must be destroyed. 

Again, I learn from this subject what a large amount 
of the Church? 8 resources is actually hidden, and buried, 
and undeveloped. The Bible intimates that that was a 
very rich land — this land of Israel. It says: "The stones 
are iron, and out of the hills thou shalt dig brass," and 
yet hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of this metal 
was kept under the hills. Well, that is the difficulty 
with the Church of God at this day. Its talent is not 
developed. If one-half of its energy could be brought 
out, it might take the public iniquities of the day by the 
throat and make them bite the dust. If human elo- 
quence were consecrated to the Lord Jesus Christ, it 
could in a few years persuade this whole earth to sur- 



THE BLACKSMITHS CAPTIVITY. 



157 



render to God. There is enough undeveloped energy in 
this one Church to bring all Brooklyn to Christ — enough 
undeveloped Christian energy in the City of Brooklyn 
to bring all the United States to Christ — enough unde- 
veloped Christian energy in the United States to bring 
the whole world to Christ; but it is buried under strata 
of indifference and under whole mountains of sloth* 
Now is it not time for the mining to begin, and the 
pickaxes to plunge, and for this buried metal to be 
brought out and put into the furnaces, and be turned 
into howitzers and carbines for the Lord's host! The 
vast majority of Christians in this day are useless. The 
most of the Lord's battalion belong to the reserve corps. 
The most of the crew are asleep in the hammocks. The 
most of the metal is under the hills. Oh, is it not time 
for the Church of God to rouse up and understand that 
we want all the energies, all the talent, and all the wealth 
enlisted for Christ's sake? I like the nickname that the 
English soldiers gave to Blucher, the Commander, They 
called him "Old Forwards." We have had enough re- 
treats in the Church of Christ; let us have a glorious 
advance. And I say to you to-night, as the General said 
when his troops were affrighted. Eising up in his stir- 
rups, his hair flying in the wind, he lifted up his voice 
until 20,000 troops heard him, crying out: "Forward, 
the whole line!" 

Again: I learn from this subject, that we sometimes 
do well to take advantage of the world's sharpening 
instruments. These Israelites were reduced to a file, 
and so they went over to the garrison of the Philistines 
to get their axes and their goads, and their ploughs 
sharpened. The Bible distinctly states it — the text 
which I read at the beginning of the service-— that they 
had bo other instruments now with which to do this 



158 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



work, and the Israelites did right when they went over 
to the Philistines to use their grindstones. My friends, 
is it not right for us to employ the world's grindstones? 
If there be art, if there be logic, if there be business 
faculty on the other side, let us go over and employ it 
for Christ's sake. The fact is, we fight with too dull 
weapons, and we work with too dull implements. We 
hack and we maul when we ought to make a keen stroke. 
Let us go over among sharp business men, and among 
sharp literary men, and find out what their tact is, and then 
transfer it to the cause of Christ. If they have science 
and art it will do us good to rub against it. In other 
words: let us employ the world's grindstones. We will 
listen to their music, and we will watch their acumen, 
and we will use their grindstones; and we will borrow 
their philosophical apparatus to make our experiments, 
and we will borrow their printing-presses to publish our 
Bibles, and we will borrow their rail-trains to carry our 
Christian literature, and we will borrow their ships to 
transport our missionaries. That was what made Paul 
such a master in his day. He not only got all the learn- 
ing he could get of Doctor Gamaliel, but afterward, 
standing on Mars Hill, and in crowded thoroughfare, 
quoted their poetry, and grasped their logic, and wielded 
their eloquence, and employed their mythology, until 
Dionysius the Areopagite, learned in the schools of 
Athens and Heliopolis, went down under his tremendous 
powers. That was what gave Thomas Chalmers his 
power in his day. He conquered the world's astronomy 
and compelled it to ring out the wisdom and greatness 
of the Lord, until for the second time, the morning stars 
sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 
That was what gave to Jonathan Edwards his influence 
in his day. He conquered the world's metaphysics and 



THE BLACKSMITHS* OAPTIVITT. 



159 



forced it into the service of God, until not only the old 
meeting-house at Northampton, Massachusetts, but all 
Christendom felt thrilled by his Christian power. Well, 
now, my friends, we all have tools of Christian useful- 
ness. Do not let them lose their edges. We want no 
rusty blades in this fight. We want no coulter that can- 
not rip up the glebe. We want no axe that cannot fell 
the trees. We want no goad that cannot start the lazy 
team. Let us get the very best grindstones we can find, 
though they be in the possession of the Philistines, 
compelling them to turn the crank while we bear down 
with all our might on the swift-revolving wheel until all 
our energies and faculties shall be brought up to a bright, 
keen, sharp, glittering edge. 

Again: my subject teaches us on what a small allow- 
ance Philistine iniquity puts a man. Yes; these Phil- 
istines shut up the mines, and then they took the spears 
and the swords, then they took the blacksmiths, then 
they took the grindstones, and they took everything but 
a file. Oh, that is the way sin works; it grabs every- 
thing. It begins with robbery, and it ends with robbery. 
It despoils this faculty and that faculty, and keeps on 
until the whole nature is gone. Was the man eloquent 
before, it generally thickens his tongue. Was he fine in 
personal appearance, it mars his visage. Was he afflu- 
ent, it sends the sheriff to sell him out. Was he influen- 
tial, it destroys his popularity. Was he placid, and genial, 
and loving, it makes him splenetic and cross; and so 
utterly is he changed that you can see he is sarcastic and 
rasping, and that the Philistines have left him nothing 
but a file. Oh, "the way of the transgressor is hard." 
His cup is bitter. His night is dark. His pangs are 
deep. His end is terrific. Philistine iniquity says to 
that man: "!N*ow, surrender to me, and I will give you 



160 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



all jou want — music for the dance, swift steeds for the 
race, imperial couch to slumber on, and jou shall be re- 
freshed with the rarest fruits, in baskets of golden fila- 
gree." He lies. The music turns out to be a groan. 
The fruits burst the rind with rank poison. The filagree 
is made up of twisted snakes. The coush is a grave- 
Small allowance of rest; small allowance of peace; small 
allowance of comfort. Cold, hard, rough — nothing but 
a file. So it was with Yoltaire, the most applauded man 
of his day: 

♦The Scripture was his jest-book, whence he drew 
Bon mots to gall the Christian and the Jew. 
An infidel when well, but what when sick t 
Oh, then a text would touch him to the quick." 

Seized with hemorrhage of the lungs in Paris, whe^ 
he had gone to be crowned in the theater as the idol of 
all France, he sends a messenger to get a priest, that he 
may be reconciled to the Church before he dies. A 
great terror falls upon him. He makes the place all 
round about him so dismal that the nurse declares that 
she would not for all the wealth of Europe see another 
infidel die. Philistine iniquity had promised him all the 
world's garlands, but in the last hour of his life, when 
he needed solacing, sent tearing across his conscience 
and his nerves a file, a file. So it was with Lord Byron, 
his uncleanness in England only surpassed by his un- 
cleanness in Venice, then going on to end his brilliant 
misery at Missolonghi, fretting at his nurse Fletcher, 
fretting at himself, fretting at the world, fretting at God; 
and he who gave to the world "Childe Harold," and 
"Sardanapalus," and "The Prisoner of Chillon," and 
"The Siege of Corinth," reduced to nothing but a file! 
Oh, sin has great facility for making promises, but it 
has just as great facility for breaking them. A Chris* 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



161 



tian life is the only cheerful life, while a life of wicked 
surrender is remorse, ruin, and death. Its painted glee 
is sepulchral ghastliness. In the brightest days of the 
Mexican Empire, Montezuma said he felt gnawing at his 
heart something like a canker. Sin, like a monster wild 
beast of the forest, sometimes licks all over its victim in 
order that the victim may be more easily swallowed; but 
generally sin rasps, and galls, and tears, and upbraids, 
and files. Is it not so, Herod? Is it not so, Hildebrand! 
Is it not so, Kobespierre? Aye! aye! it is so; it is so. 
"The way of the wicked he turneth upside down." His- 
tory tells us that when Kome was founded, on that day 
there were twelve vultures flying through the air; but 
when a transgressor dies, the sky is black with whole 
flocks of them. Vultures! When I see sin robbing so 
many of my hearers, and I see them going down day by 
day, and week by week, I must give a plain warning. I 
dare not keep it back lest I risk the salvation of my own 
soul. Kover and Pirate pulled down the warning bell 
on Inchcape Eock, thinking that he would have a chance 
to despoil vessels that were crushed on the rocks; but 
one night his own ship crashed down on this very rock, 
and he went down with all his cargo. God declares: 
"When I say to the wicked, thou shalt surely die, and 
thou givest him not warning, that same man shall die 
in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thy 
hands." 

I learn from this subject, what a sad thing it is when 
the Church of God loses its metal. These Philistines 
saw that if they could only get all the metallic weapons 
out of the hands of the Israelites, all would be well, and, 
therefore, they took the swords and the spears. They 
did not want them to have a single metallic weapon. 
When the metal of the Israelites was gone, their strength 
was gone. This is the trouble with the Church of God 



162 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



to-day. It is surrendering its courage. It has not got 
enough metal. How seldom it is that you see a man 
taking his position in pew, or in pulpit, or in a religous 
society, and holding that position against all oppression^ 
and all trial, and all persecution, and all criticism. The 
Church of God to-day wants more backbone, more defi- 
ance, more consecrated bravery, more metal. How often 
you see a man start out in some good enterprise, and at 
the first blast of newspaperdom he has collapsed, and all 
his courage gone, forgetful of the fact that if a man be 
right, all the newspapers of the earth, with all their col- 
umns pounding away at him, cannot do him any perma- 
nent damage. It is only when a man is wrong that he can 
be damaged. Why, God is going to vindicate his truth, 
and he is going to stand by you, my friends, in every 
effort you make for Christ's cause and the salvation of 
men. I sometimes say to my wife: "There is something 
wrong; the newspapers have not assaulted me for six 
weeks ! I have not done my duty against public iniqui- 
ties, and I will stir them up next Sunday." Then I stir 
them up, and all the following week the devil howls, and 
howls, showing that I have hit him very hard. Go 
forth in the service of Christ and do your whole duty. 
You have one sphere. I have another sphere. "The 
Lord of Hosts is with us, and the God of J acob is our 
refuge. Selah." We want more of the determination 
of Jonathan. I do not suppose he was a very wonderfuJ 
man; but he got on his knees and clambered up the 
rock, and with the help of his armor-bearer he hewed 
down the Philistines; and a man of very ordinary intel- 
lectual attainments, on his knees, can storm anything 
for God and for the truth. We want something of the 
determination of the general who went into the war, 
and as he entered his first battle, his knees knocked to- 
gether, his physical e^urage not quite up to his moral 



THE BLACKSMITHS' CAPTIVITY. 



163 



courage; and he looked down at his knees, and said: 
a Ah, if yon knew where I was going to take you, you 
would shake worse than that I" There is only one ques- 
tion for you to ask and for me to ask. What does God 
want me to do? Where is the field? Where is the 
work? Where is the anvil? Where is the prayjer-meet- 
ing? Where is the pulpit? And, finding out what God 
wants us to do, go ahead and do it — all the energies of 
our body, mind, and soul enlisted in the undertaking. 
Oh, my brethren, we have but little time in which to 
fight for God. You will be dead soon. Put in the 
Christian cause every energy that God gives you. "What 
thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might, for there 
is neither wisdom nor device in the grave whither we 
are all ha8tening. ,, Here we are at the end of the eccle- 
siastical year, our congregation partially dispersed, and 
others to go. Opportunities of usefulness gone forever; 
souls that might have been benefited three months ago 
never again coming under our Christian influence. Oh, 
is it not high time that we awake out of sleep ? Church 
of God, lift up your head at the coming victory ! The 
Philistines will go down, and the Israelites will go up. 
We are on the winning side. Hear that — on the win- 
ning side. I think just now the King's horses are being 
hooked up to the chariot, and when he does ride down 
the sky there will be such a hosanna among his friends, 
and such a wailing among his enemies, as will make the 
earth tremble and the heavens sing. I see now the 
plumes of the Lord's cavalrymen tossing in the air. 
The archangel before the throne has already burnished 
his t* ampe^ and then he will put its golden lips to his 
own, and he will blow the long, loud blast that will 
make all the nations free. Clap your hands, all ye peo- 
ple! Hark! I hear the falling throats, and the dashing 
down of demolished iniquities. 



164 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE DIET OF ASHES. 
He feedeth on ashes.— Isa. xliv: 80. 

Here is a description of the idolatry and worldliness 
of people in Isaiah's time, and of a very prevalent style 
of diet in our time. The world spreads a great feast, 
and invites the race co sit at it. Platters are heaped np. 
Chalices are full. Garlands wreathe the wall. The 
guests sit down amid outbursts of hilarity. They take 
the fruit and it turns into ashes. They uplift the tank- 
ards and their contents prove to be ashes. They touch 
the garlands and they scatter into ashes. I do not know 
any passage of Scripture which so.apothegmatically sets 
forth the unsatisfactory nature of this world for eye, and 
tongue, and lip, and heart, as this particular passage, 
describing the votary of the world, when it says: "He 
feedeth on ashes." 

I shall not take the estimate by those whose life has 
been a failure. A man may despise the world simply 
because he cannot win it. Having failed, in his chagrin 
he may decry that which he would like to have had as 
his bride. I shall, therefore, take only the testimony of 
those who have been magnificently successful. 

In the first place, I shall ask the kings of the earth to 
stand up and give testimony, telling of the long story of 
sleepless nights, and poisoned cups, and threatened in- 
vasion, and dreaded rebellion. Ask the Georges, ask the 
Henrys, ask the Marys, ask the Louises, ask the Cather- 



THE DIET OF ASHES. 



165 



ines, whether they found the throne a safe seat, and the 
crown a pleasant covering. Ask the French guillotine 
in Madam Tussaud's Museum about the queenly necks 
it has dissevered. Ask the Tower of London and its 
headsman's block. Ask the Tuilleries, and Henry VIII., 
and Cardinal Wolsey to rise out of the dust and say 
tfhat they think of worldly honors. Ghastly with the 
first and the second death, they rise up with eyeless 
sockets and grinning skeletons, and stagger forth, unable 
at first to speak at all, but afterward hoarsely whisper- 
ing: "Ashes! ashes I" 

I call up also a group of commercial adepts to give 
testimony; and here again, those who have been only 
moderately successful may not testify. All the witnesses 
must be millionaires. What a grand thing it must be to 
own a railroad, to control a bank, to possess all the 
houses on one street, to have vast investments tumbling in 
upon you day after day, whether you work or not. No, 
no. William B. Astor, a few days before his death, sits 
in his office in New York, grieving almost until he is 
sick, because rents have gone down. A. T. Stewart finds 
his last days full of foreboding and doubt. When a 
Christian man proposes to talk to him about the matters 
of the soul, he cries: "Go away from me! Go away from 
me;" not satisfied until the man has got outside the 
door. Come up, ye millionaires, from various cemeter- 
ies and graveyards, and tell us now what you think of 
banks, and mills, and factories, and counting-houses, and 
marble palaces, and presidential banquets. They stag- 
ger forth and lean against the cold slab of the tomb, 
mouthing with toothless gums and gesticulating with 
fleshless hands and shivering with the chill of sepulchral 
dampness, while they cry out: "Ashes!" 

I must call up now, also, a group of sinful pleasuristej 



166 



THE DIWT OF A8HK8. 



and here again I will not take the testimony of those 
who had merely the ordinary gratifications of life. The 
witnesses must have had excess of delight. Their pleas- 
ures were pyramidal. They bloomed paradisaically. If 
they drank wine, it must be the best that was ever pressed 
from the vineyards of Hockheimer. If they listened to 
music, it must be the costliest opera, with a world-re- 
nowned prima donna. If they sinned, they chased 
polished uncleanness, and graceful despair, and glittering 
damnation. Stand up, Alcibiades, and Aaron Burr, and 
Lord Byron, and Charles the second — what think you 
now of midnight revel, and sinful carnival, and damask- 
curtain abomination? Answer! The color goes out of 
the cheek, the dregs are serpent-twisted in the bottom of 
the wine-cup, the bright lights quenched in blackness of 
darkness. They jingle together the broken glasses, and 
rend the faded silks, and shut the door of the deserted 
banqueting hall, while they cry: "Ashes! ashes !" 

A troop of infidels: There are a great many in this 
day who try to feed their soul on infidelity mixed with 
truth. Their religion is made up of ten degrees of 
humanitarianism, and ten degrees of transcendentalism, 
and ten degrees of egotism with one degree of Gospel 
truth, and with that mixture they make the poor, miser- 
able cud which their immortal souls chew, while the 
meadows of God's Word are green and luxuriant with 
well- watered pastures. Did you ever see a bright infi- 
del? Did you ever meet a placid skeptic? Did you ever 
find a contented atheist? Not one. From the days of 
Gibbon and Voltaire down, not one. They quarrel 
about God. They quarrel about the Bible. They quar- 
rel about each other. They quarrel with themselves. 
They gather all the Divine teachings, and under them 
the fires of their awn wit, and scorn, and sarcasm, ano 



THE DIET OF ASHES. 



167 



then they dance in the light of that blaze, and they 
scratch amid the rnbbish for something with which to 
help them in the days of trouble, and something to com 
fort them in the days of death, finding for their dis- 
traught and destroyed 60uls, ashes — ashes. Yoltaire 
declared: "This globe seems to me more like a collection 
of carcasses than of men. I wish I had never been born." 
Hume says: "I am like a man who has run on rocks and 
quicksands, and yet I contemplate putting out on the sea 
in the same leaky and weather-beaten craft." Chester- 
field says: "I have been behind the scenes, and I have 
noticed the clumsey pulleys and the dirty ropes by which 
all the scene is managed, and I have seen and smelt the 
tallow candles which throw the illumination on the 
stage, and I am tired and sick." Get up, then, Francis 
Newport, and Hume, and Yoltaire, and Tom Paine, and 
all the infidels who have passed out of this world into 
the eternal world — get up now and tell what you think 
of all your grandiloquent derision at our holy religion. 
What do you think now of all your sarcasm at holy 
things? They come shrieking up from the lost world to 
the graveyards where their bodies were entombed, and 
point down to the white dust of dissolution, and cry: 
Ashes I ashes I 

Oh, what a poor diet for an immortal soul. The fact 
is, the soul is hungry. What is that unrest that some- 
times comes across you! Why is it that, surrounded by 
friends, and even the luxuries of life, you wish yon 
were somewhere else, or had something you have not 
yet gained? The world calls it ambition. The physi- 
cians call it nervousness. Your friends call it the fidgets. 
I call it hunger — deep, grinding> unappeasable hunger. 
It starts with us when we are born, and goes on with us 
natil the Lord God himself appeases it. It is seeking, 



168 



THE DIET OF ASHES. 



and delving, and striving, and planning to get something 
we cannot get. Wealth says: "It is not in me." Sci- 
ence says: "It is not in me." Worldly applanse says: 
"It is not in me." Sinful indulgence says: "It is not 
in me." Where, then, is it? On the banks of what 
stream? Slumbering in what grotto? Marching in 
what contest? Expiring on what pillow? Tell me, for 
this winged and immortal spirit, is there nothing but 
ashes? 

In communion with God, and everlasting trust of him, 
is complete satisfaction. Solomon described it when he 
compared it to cedar houses, and golden chains, and 
Dounding reindeer, and day-break, and imperial couch; 
to saffron, to calamus, to white teeth, and hands heavy 
with gold rings, and towers of ivory and ornamental fig- 
ures; but Christ calls it bread! O famished, yet im- 
mortal soul, why not come and get it? Until our sins 
are pardoned, there is no rest. We know not at what 
moment the hounds may bay at us. We are in a castle, 
and know not at what hour it may be besieged; but 
when the soothing voice of Christ comes across our per- 
turbation, it is hushed for ever. A merchant in Ant- 
werp loaned Charles Y. a vast sum of money, taking 
for it a bond. One day this Antwerp merchant invited 
Charles Y. to dine with him, and while they were seated 
At the table, in the presence of the guests, the merchant 
had a fire built on a platter in the centre of the table. 
Then he took the bond which the King had given him 
for the vast sum of money, and held it in the blaze until 
H was consumed, and the king congratulated himself, 
and all the guests congratulated the king. There wae 
gone at last the final evidence of his indebtedness 
Mortgaged to God, we owe a debt we can never pay; 
out God invites us to the Gospel feast, and in the fires ol 



THE DIET OF ASHES. 



169 



crucifixion agony he puts the last record of our indebt- 
edness, and it is consumed forever. It was so in the 
case of the dying thief expiring in dark despair, with 
the judgment to come staring him in the face, ard the 
terrors of hell laying hold of his soul. He had faith in 
the Crucified One, and his faith won for him an immedi- 
ate entrance into paradise. 

Oh, to have all the sins of our past forgiven, and to 
have all possible security for the future — is not that 
enough to make a man happy? What makes that old 
Christian so placid? Most of his family lie in the vil- 
lage cemetery. His health is undermined. His cough 
will not let him sleep at night. From the day he came 
to town and he was a clerk, until this the day of his old 
age, it has been a hard tight for bread. Yet how happy 
he looks. Why? It, is because he feels that the same 
God who watched him when he lay in his mother's arms 
is watching him in the time of old age, and unto God he 
has committed all his dead, expecting after a while to 
see them again. He has no anxiety whether he go this 
summer or next summer — whether he be carried out 
through the snowbanks or through the daisies. Fifty 
years ago, he learned that all this world could give was 
ashes, and he reached up and took the fruits of eternal 
life. You see his face is very white now. The csimson 
currents of life seem to have departed from it; but under 
that extreme whiteness of the old man's face is the flash 
of the day-break. There is only one word in all our 
language that can describe his feelings, and that is the 
word that slipped off the angel's harp above Bethlehem 
— peace! And so there are hundreds of souls here to- 
night who have felt this Almighty comfort. Their repu- 
tation was pursued; their health shattered; their home 
was almost if not quite broken up; their fortune went 



170 



THUS DIET OF ASHES. 



%way from them. Why do they not sit down and give 
it up! Ah, they have no disposition to do that. They 
are saying while I speak: "It is my Father that mixed 
this bitter cup, and I will cheerfully drink it. Every- 
thing will be explained after awhile. I shall not always 
be under the harrow. There is something that makes 
me think I am almost home. God will yet wipe away 
all tears from my eyes." So say these bereft parents. 
So say these motherless children. So say a great manv 
in this house to-night. 

Now, am I not right in these circumstances, in trying 
to persuade this entire audience to give up ashes and 
take bread? To give up the unsatisfactory things of this 
world, and take the glorious things of God and eternity? 
Why, my friends, if you kept this world as long as it lasts, 
you would have, after awhile, to give it up. There will be 
a great fire breaking out from the sides of the hill s; there 
will be falling flame, and ascending flame; in it the earth 
will be overwhelmed. Fires burning from within, out; 
fires burning from above, down ; this earth will be a fur- 
nace, and then it will be a living coal, and then it will be an 
expiring ember, and the thick clouds of smoke will lessen 
and lessen until there will be only a faint vapor curling 
up from the ruins, and then the very last spark of the 
earth will go out And I see two angels meeting each 
other over the gray pile, and as one flits past, he cries, 
"Ashes!" and the other, as he sweeps down the immen- 
sity, will respond, "Ashes!" while all the infinite spaces 
will echo and re-echo, "Ashes! ashes! ashes!" 

Oh, God forbid that you and I should choose such a 
mean portion. My fear is, not that you will not see the 
superiority of Christ to this world, but that, through 
some dreadful infatuation, you will relegate to the future 
that which God, and angels, and churches militant and 




CHRIST'S LAST SUPPER WITH HIS DISCIPLES. 

•* And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles 
with him. And he took the cup, and gave thanks." — Luke 22. 14. 



THE DIET OF ASHES. 



171 



triumphant declare that you ought to do now. My 
brother, I do not say that you will go out of this world 
by the stroke of a horse's hoof, or that you will fall 
through a hatchway, or that a plank may slip from an 
insecure scaffolding and dash your life out, or that a bolt 
may fall on you from an August thunder-storm; but I 
do say that, in the vast majority of cases, your departure 
from the world will be wonderfully quick; and I want 
you to start on the right road before that crisis has 
plunged. 

A Spaniard, in a burst of temper, slew a Moor. Then 
the Spaniard leaped over a high wall and met a gardener, 
and told him the whole story; and the gardener said: "I 
will make a pledge of confidence with you. Eat this 
peach and that will be a pledge that I will be your pro- 
tector to the last." But, oh, the sorrow and surprise of 
the gardener when he found out that it was his own son 
that had been slain! Then he came to the Spaniard and 
said to him: "You were cruel, you ought to die, you 
slew my son, and yet I took a pledge with you, and I 
must keep my promise; and bo he took the Spaniard to 
the stables and brought out the swiftest horse. The 
Spaniard sprang upon it and put many miles between 
him and the scene of crime, and perfect escape was 
effected. 

We have, by our sins, slain the Son of God. Is there 
any possibility of our rescue? Oh, yes. God the Father 
says to us: "You had no business, by your sin, to slay 
my Son, Jesus; you ought to die, but I have promised 
you deliverance. I have made you the promise of eter- 
nal life, and you shall have it. Escape now for thy life." 
And to-night I act merely as the Lord's groom, and I 
bring you out to the King's stables, and I tell you to be 
quick and mount, and awav In this plain you perish, 
26 



172 



THE DIET 01 ASHES. 



but housed in God you live. Oh, you pursued and al- 
most overtaken one, put on more speed. Eternal salva- 
tion is the price of your velocity. Fly! fly! lest the 
black horse outrun the white horse, and the battle-ax« 
shiver the helmet and crash down through the insuffi- 
cient mail. In this tremendous exigency of your ins 
mortal spirit beware, lest you prefer ashes to bread ! 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 



173 



CHAPTER XIV. 

KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 
A companion of fools shall £>e destroyed. — Proverbs xiii: 20. 

On the nights of city exploration I found that hardly 
any young man came to places of dissipation alone. 
Each one was accompanied. No man goes to ruin alone. 
He always takes some one else with him. 

"May it please the court, "said a convicted criminal, 
when asked if he had anything to say before sen- 
tence of death was passed upon him — "may it please the 
Court, bad company has been my ruin. I received the 
blessings of good parents, and, in return, promised to 
avoid all evil associations. Had I kept my promise, I 
should have been saved this shame, and been free from 
the load of guilt that hangs around me like a vulture, 
threatening to drag me to justice for crimes yet unre- 
vealed. I, who once moved in the first circles of society, 
and have been the guest of distinguished public men, 
am lost, and all through bad company." 

This is but one of the thousand proofs that the com- 
panion of fools shall be destroyed. It is the invariable 
rule. There is a well man in the wards of a hospital, 
where there are a hundred people sick with ship fever, 
and he will not be so apt to take the disease as a good 
man would be apt to be smitten with moral distemper, 
if shut up with iniquitous companions. 

In olden times prisoners were herded together in the 
same cell, but each one learned the vices of all the cul- 
prits, so that, instead of being reformed by incarceration, 



174 KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 

the day of liberation turned them out upon society beasts, 
not men. 

We may, in our places of business, be compelled to 
talk to and mingle with bad men ; but he who deliber- 
ately chooses to associate himself with vicious people, is 
engaged in carrying on a courtship with a Delilah, 
whose shears will clip off all the locks of his strength, 
and he will be tripped into perdition. Sin is catching, 
is infectious, is epidemic. I will let you look over the 
millions of people now inhabiting the earth, and I chal- 
lenge you to show me a good man who, after one year, 
has made choice and consorted with the wicked. A 
thousand dollars reward for one such instance. I care 
not how strong your character may be. Associate 
with horse-thieves, you will become a horse-thief. 
Clan with burglars, and you will become a burglar. 
Go among the unclean, and you will become un- 
clean. Not appreciating the truth of my text, many 
a young man has been destroyed. He wakes up 
some morning in the great city, and knows no one ex- 
cept the persons into whose employ he has entered. 

As he goes into the store all the clerks mark him, 
measure him and discuss him. The upright young men 
of the store wish him well, but perhaps wait for a formal 
introduction, and even then have some delicacy about 
inviting him into their associations. But the bad young 
men of the store at the first opportunity approach and 
offer their services. They patronize him. They profess 
to know all about the town. They will take him any- 
where that he wishes to go — if he will pay the expenses. 
For if a good young man and a bad young man go to 
some place where they ought not, the good young man 
has invariably to pay the charges. At the moment the 
ticket is to be paid for, or the champagne settled for, the 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 175 

bad young man feels around in his pockets and says, "I 
have forgotten my pocket-book." In forty-eight hours 
after the young man has entered the store the bad fellows 
of the establishment slap him on the shoulder familiarly ; 
and, at his stupidity in taking certain allusions, say, 
"My young friend, you will have to be broken in;" and 
they immediately proceed to break him in. Young man, 
in the name of God I warn you to beware how you 
let a bad man talk familiarly with you. If such 
an one slap you on the shoulder familiarly, turn 
round and give him a withering look, until the wretch 
crouches in your presence. There is no monstrosity of 
wickedness that can stand unabashed under the glance 
of purity and honor. God keeps the lightnings of heaven 
in his own scabbard, and no human arm can wield them ; 
but God gives to every young man a lightning that he 
may use, and that is the lightning of an honest eye. 
Those who have been close observers of city life will not 
wonder why I give warning to young men, and say, 
"Beware of bad company." 

First, I warn you to shun the skeptic — the young man 
who puts his fingers in his vest and laughs at your old- 
fashioned religion, and turns over to some mystery of 
the Bible, and says, "Explain that, my pious friend; 
explain that." And who says, "Nobody shall scare me ; 
I am not afraid of the future ; I used to believe in such 
things, and so did my father and mother, but I have got 
over it." Yes, he has got over it ; and if you sit in his 
company a little longer, you will get over it too. With- 
out presenting one argument against the Christian relig- 
ion, such men will, by their jeers and scoffs and carica- 
tures, destroy your respect for that religion, which was 
the strength of your father in his declining years, and 
the pillow of your old mother when she lay a-dying. 



176 KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 

Alas ! a time will come when that blustering young 
infidel will have to die, and then his diamond ring will 
flash no splendor in the eyes of Death, as he stands over 
the couch, waiting for his soul. Those beautiful locks 
will be uncombed upon the. pillow ; and the dying man 
will say, "I cannot die — I cannot die." Death standing 
ready beside the couch, says, "You must die; you have 
only half a minute to live ; let me have it right away 
— your soul." "No," says the young infidel, "here are 
my gold rings, and these pictures ; take them all." "No," 
says Death, "What do I care for pictures ! — your soul.'' 
"Stand back," says the dying infidel. "I will not stand 
back," says Death, "for you have only ten seconds now 
to live ; I want your soul." The dying man says, "Don't 
breathe that cold air into my face. You crowd me 
too hard. It is getting dark in the room. OGod!" 
"Hush," says Death; you said there was no God." 
"Pray for me," exclaims the expiring infidel. "Too late to 
pray," says Death ; "but three more seconds to live, and 
I will count them off — one — two — three." He has gone ! 
Where ? Where ? Carry him out — out, and bury him 
beside his father and mother, who died while holding 
fast the Christian religion. They died singing ; but the 
young infidel only said, "Don't breathe that cold air 
into my face. You crowd me too hard. It is getting 
dark in the room." 

Again, I urge you to shun the companionship of idlers. 
There are men hanging around every store, and office 
and shop, who have nothing to do, or act as if they had 
not. They are apt to come in when the firm are away, 
and wish to engage you in conversation while you are 
engaged in your regular employment. Politely suggest to 
such persons that you have no time to give them during 
business hours. Nothing would please them so well as 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 177 

to have you renounce your occupation and associate with 
them. Much of the time they lounge around the doors 
of engine houses, or after the dining hour stand upon 
the steps of a fashionable hotel or an elegant restaurant 
wishing to give you the idea that that is the place where 
they dine. But they do not dine there. They are sink- 
ing down lower and lower, day by day. Neither by day 
nor by night have anything to do with the idlers. Be- 
fore you admit a man into your acquaintance ask him 
politely, "What do you do for a living?" If he says 
< 'Nothing, I am a gentleman," look out for him. He 
may have a very soft hand, and very faultless apparel, 
and have a high-sounding family name, but his touch is 
death. Before you know it, you will in his presence be 
ashamed of your work dress. Business will become to 
you drudgery, and after awhile you will lose your place, 
and afterward your respectibility, and last of all your 
soul. Idleness is next door to villainy. Thieves, gam- 
blers, burglars, shop-lifters and assassins are made from 
the class who have nothing to do. When the police go 
to hunt up and arrest a culprit they seldom go to look 
in at the busy carriage factory, or behind the counter 
where diligent clerks are employed, but they go among 
the groups of idlers. The play is going on at the 
theater, when suddenly there is a scuffle in the top gallery. 
What is it ? A policeman has come in, and, leaning over, 
has tapped on the shoulder of a young man, saying, "I 
want you, sir." He has not worked during the day, but 
somehow has raked together a shilling or two to get into 
the top gallery. He is an idler. The man on his right 
hand is an idler, and the man on his left hand is an idler. 

During the past few years there has been a great deal 
of dullness in business. Young men have complained 
that they have little to do. If they have nothing else 



178 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 



to do they can read and improve their minds and hearts. 
These times are not always to continue. Business is 
waking up, and the superior knowledge that in this in- 
terregnum of work you may obtain will be worth fifty 
thousand dollars of capital. The large fortunes of the 
next twenty years are having their foundations laid this 
winter by the young men who are giving themselves to 
self -improvement. I went into a store in New York and 
saw five men, all Christians, sitting around, saying that 
they had nothing to do. It is an outrage for a Christian 
man to have nothing to do. Let him go out and visit the 
poor, or distribute tracts, or go and read the Bible to the 
sick, or take out his New Testament and be making his 
eternal fortune. Let him go into the back office and 
pray. 

Shrink back from idleness in yourself and in others, if 
you would maintain a right position. Good old Ashbel 
Green, at more than eighty years of age, was found busy 
writing, and some young man said to him: "Why do 
you keep busy? It is time for you to rest?" He an- 
swered : "I keep busy to keep out of mischief." No 
man is strong enough to be idle. 

Are you fond of pictures ? If so I will show you one 
of the works of an old master. Here it is: "I went by 
the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man 
void of understanding ; and lo ! it was all grown over 
with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and 
the stone wall was broken down. Then I saw and consider- 
ed well. Hooked upon it and received instruction. Yet a 
little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to 
sleep. So shall thy poverty come as one that traveleth 
and thy want as an armed man." I don't know of 
another sentence in the Bible more explosive than that. 
It first hisses softly, like the fuse of a cannon, and at 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 179 

last bursts like a fifty-four pounder. The old proverb 
was right: "The devil tempts most men, but idlers 
tempt the devil. " 

A young man came to a man of ninety years of age 
and said to him : "How have you made out to live so 
long and be so well?" The old man took the youngster 
to an orchard, and, pointing to some large trees full of 
apples, said : "I planted these trees when I was a 
boy, and do you wonder that now I am permitted to 
gather the fruit of them?" We gather in old age what 
we plant in our youth. Sow to the wind and we reap 
the whirlwind. Plant in early life the right kind of a 
Christian character, and you will eat luscious fruit in 
old age, and gather these harvest apples in eternity. 

Again : I urge you to avoid the perpetual pleasure- 
seeker. I believe in recreation and amusement. I need 
it as much as I need bread, and go to my gymnasium 
with as conscientious a purpose as I go to the Lord's 
Supper ; and all persons of sanguine temperament must 
have amusement and recreation. God would not have 
made us with the capacity to laugh if he had not intend- 
ed us sometimes to indulge it. We will go forth from 
the festivities of coming holidays better prepared to do 
our work. God hath hung in sky, and set in wave, and 
printed on grass many a roundelay ; but he who chooses 
pleasure- seeking for his life-work does not understand 
for what God made him. Our amusements are intended 
to help us in some earnest mission. The thunder-cloud 
hath an edge exquisitely purpled, but with voice that 
jars the earth, it declares, "I go to water the green fields.** 
The wild-flowers under the fence are gay, but they 
say, "We stand here to make room for the wheat-field, 
and to refresh the husbandmen in their nooning." The 
stream sparkles and foams, and frolics, and says, "I go 



180 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 



to baptize the moss. I lave the spots on the trout. I 
slake the thirst of the bird. I turn the wheel of the 
mill. I rock in my crystal cradle muckshaw and water, 
lily." And so, while the world plays, it works. Look 
out for the man who always plays and never works. 

You will do well to avoid those whose regular business 
it is to play ball, skate or go a-boating. All these sports 
are grand in their places. I never derived so much ad- 
vantage from any ministerial association, as from a min- 
isterial club that went out to play ball every Saturday 
afternoon in the outskirts of Philadelphia. These recrea- 
tions are grand to give us muscle and spirits for our reg- 
ular toil. I believe in muscular Christianity. A man 
is often not so near God with a weak stomach as when he 
has a strong digestion. But shun those who make it their 
life occupation to sport. There are young men whose 
industry and usefulness have fallen overboard from the 
yacht on the Hudson or the Schuylkill. There are men 
whose business fell through the ice of the skating pond, 
and has never since been heard of. There is a beauty in 
the gliding of a boat, in the song of skates, in the soar- 
ing of a well-struck ball, and I never see one fly but I 
involuntarily throw up my hands to catch it ; and, so far 
from laying an injunction upon ball-playing, or any 
other innocent sport, I claim them all as belonging of 
right to those of us who toil in the grand industries of 
church and state. 

But the life business of pleasure-seeking always makes 
in the end a criminal or a sot. George Brummell was 
smiled upon by all England, and his life was given to 
pleasure. He danced with peeresses, and swung a round 
of mirth; and wealth, and applause, until exhausted of 
purse, and worn out of body, and bankrupt of reputation, 
and ruined of soul, he begged a biscuit from a grocer, 



KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 



181 



and declared that he thought a dog's life was better than 
a man's. 

Such men will crowd around your anvil, or seek to de- 
coy you off. They will want you to break out in the 
midst of your busy day to take a ride with them to 
Coney Island or to Central Park. They will tell you of 
some people you must see ; of some excursion that you 
must take ; of some Sabbath day that you ought to dis- 
honor. They will tell you of exquisite wines that you 
must take ; of costly operas that you must hear ; of won- 
derful dancers that you must see ; but before you accept 
their convoy or their companionship, remember that 
while at the end of a useful life you may be able to look 
back to kindnesses done, to honorable work accomplished, 
to poverty helped, to a good name earned, to Christian 
influence exerted, to a Savior's cause advanced — these 
pleasure-seekers on their death-bed have nothing better 
to review than a torn play-bill, a ticket for the races, an 
empty tankard, and the cast-out rinds of a carousal ; and 
as in the delirium of their awful death they clutch the 
goblet, and press it to their lips, the dregs of the cup 
falling upon their tongue, will begin to hiss and uncoil 
with the adders of an eternal poison. 

Cast out these men from your company. Do not be 
intimate with them. Always be polite. There is no 
demand that you ever sacrifice politeness. A young 
man accosted a Christian Quaker with, "Old chap, how 
did you make all your money?" The Quaker re- 
plied, "By dealing in an article that thou may est deal 
in if thou wilt — civility." Always be courteous, but at 
the same time firm. Say no as if you meant it. Have 
it understood in store, and shop, and street that you will 
not stand in the companionship of the skeptic, the idle, 
the pleasure-seeker. 



182 KEEPING BAD COMPANY. 

Eather than enter the companionship of such, accept 
the invitation to a better feast. The promises of God 
are the fruits. The harps of heaven are the music. 
Clusters from the vineyards of God have been pressed 
into the tankards. The sons and daughters of the Lord 
Mmighty are the guests. While, standing at the ban- 
quet, to fill the cups and divide the clusters, and com- 
mand the harps, and welcome the guests, is a daughter 
of God on whose brow are the blossoms of Paradise, and 
in whose cheek is the flush of celestial summer. Het 
name is Eeligion. 

"Her ways are ways of pleasantness, 
And all her paths are peace." 



THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



183 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 

And the Lord said unto Ahijah: Behold, the wife of Jeroboam 
cometh to ask a thing of thee for her son, for he is sick; thus and 
thus shalt thou say unto her: for it shall be when she cometh in, 
that she shall feign herself to be another woman. — I. Kings xiv: 5. 

There is a very sick child in Jeroboam's palace in 
Tirzah. Medicines have failed. Skill is exhausted. 
Abijah, the young prince, who had already become very 
popular, must die, unless some supernatural aid be af- 
forded. Death comes up the palace -stairs and swings 
open the sick-room of royalty, and stands looking upon 
the wasted form of the young prince, holding over him 
a dart with which to strike. Wicked Jeroboam the 
father has no right to expect Divine interference. He 
knows if he pleads with the Lord's prophet, he will get 
nothing but condemnation, and so Jeroboam sends his 
wife on the tender and solemn mission. She put aside 
her princely apparel, and puts on the attire of a peasant- 
woman, and instead of taking gold and gems, as she 
might have done, as a present to the prophet, she takes 
only those things which would seem to indicate that she 
belonged to the peasantry, namely, ten loaves of bread 
and cracknels, and a cruse of honey. 

Yonder she goes, hooded and disguised, the first woman 
of all the realm, on foot, unattended, carrying a burden as 
though she had come out of one of the humblest homes 
in Tirzah. People carelessly pass her on the road, not 
knowing that she is the first woman in all the realm, the 
heiress of a kingdom, and that those who are bespangled 



184 THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 

and robed with royalty are her daily associates. Peter 
the Great, the Czar of all the Eussias, at work on the dry 
dock at Saardam, with a sailor's hat and shipwright's 
axe, was not more thoroughly disguised than this woman 
of Tirzah on her way to seek the healing blessing of the 
prophet in Shiloh. But the Lord's messenger might not 
thus be deceived. Divinely illumined, although he had 
lost his physical eyesight — divinely illumined, he sees 
right through that woman's cheat, and as this great lady 
enters the door, he accosts her in the words : u Come in, 
thou wife of Jeroboam. Why feignest thou thyself to 
be another? For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. 
Get thee to thy house, and when thy feet reach the gate 
of the city the child shall die." Broken-hearted, the 
woman goes back to her home, now not so careful to 
hide her face, or her noble gait and bearing. Her tears 
fall on the dust of the way, and her mourning fills all the 
road from Shiloh to Tirzah. What overwhelming grief ! 
for she knows that every step she takes was one heart-beat 
less in the life of her child. With wonderful precision 
every word of the prophet is fulfilled. As the woman 
goes in the gate of the city, the child's life passes out. 
No sooner have her feet struck the gate, than the pulse 
of the son ceases. The cry of sorrow in the palace is 
joined by the wailing of a nation, and as this youthful 
Abijah is carried out to his grave, the land sent up its 
voice in eulogy of departed virtue, and the air is rent 
with the lamentation of a kingdom. 

It is with no small or insignificant idea that this morn- 
ing I ask you to consider the thrilling story of this dis- 
guised Princess of Tirzah. 

In the first place, I see that wickedness is disposed to 
involve others — to make them its dupes, its allies, its 
scapegoats. Jeroboam wanted to hoodwink the prophet 



THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



185 



Did he go himself ? No, he sent his wife to do the work. 
Hers the peril of detection, the hardship of the way, 
the execution of the plot, while he stayed at home in in- 
dolence, waiting for his wicked scheme to be carried out. 
Iniquity, though a brag, is a great coward. It contrives 
sin, but leaves others to execute it ; it lays the train of 
gunpowder, but wants somebody else to touch it off; 
plans the mischief, gets somebody else to work it ; in- 
vents the lie, gets somebody else to circulate it. In 
nearly all the great plots of wickedness that have been 
discovered, it has been found out that the instigators of 
the rapine, or the arson, or the murder, went free, while 
those who were suborned and inveigled into the crime, 
clanked the chain and mounted the gallows. Aaron Burr, 
with a heart unsurpassed for impurity and ambition, 
plots for the usurpation of the United States Government, 
but gets off with a little censure and a few threats, while 
Blennerhasset — sweet-tempered Blennerhasset, learned 
Blennerhasset — whom he decoyed from his gardens, and 
vineyards, and laboratories, on the banks of the Ohio, 
and hoodwinked into his crime, is hurled into prison, and 
his great fortune is scattered, and his family, brought up 
in luxury, turned out to die. Benedict Arnold, schem- 
ing for the surrender of the American forts, and the 
destruction of the American army, and the overthrow of 
the American nation, for the betrayal of our cause gets 
his purse filled with pounds sterling, and becomes a brig- 
adier-general in the opposing army ; while Major Andre, 
the brave and the brilliant, whom he duped into the con- 
spiracy, suffers the gibbet on the banks of the Hudson. 
Nine-tenths of those who are arraigned, incarcerated, 
and condemned, are merely the satellites of some adroit 
villain. Ignominious fraud is a juggler, which, by 
sleight of hand and legerdemain, makes the money it 



186 



THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



stole appear to be in somebody else's pocket. When 
there is any great wickedness to be achieved, when there 
is any great prophet to be hoodwinked, Jeroboam, in- 
stead of going himself, sends his wife to do it. Stand 
off from imposition and chicanery. Let not vile men 
employ you for the purpose of carrying out their iniqui- 
ties. 

Again, I learn from this thrilling story of the dis- 
guised Princess of Tirzah, that royalty sometimes passes 
in disguise. The frock, the hood, the veil of the coun- 
try-woman, hid up the majesty of this princess or queen, 
and as she passed along the road, no one suspected who 
she was. Yet she was just as much a princess or a 
queen under the country-woman's garb, as when wear- 
ing the apparel which flashed through the palace. So 
God now often puts upon imperial natures a crown, yet 
we do not discover them. They make no display. They 
wear no insignia of royalty. They blow no trumpet. 
They ride in no high places. They elicit no huzza. 
They quote no foreign language. Eoyalty in mask. A. 
princess in disguise. 

There are kings without the crown, and conquerors 
without the palm, and empresses without the jewels. 
That plain woman you passed on the street to-day may 
be regnant over vast realms of goodness and virtue— a 
dominion wider than Jeroboam saw from the window of 
his palace. You look in upon a home of poverty and 
destitution. No clothes. No fire. No bread. Long 
story of suffering written on the mother's wasted hand, 
and on the pale cheeks of the children, and on the empty 
bread-tray, and on the fireless hearth, and on the broken 
chair. You would not give a dollar for all the furniture 
in the house. Yet God, by his grace, may have made 
that woman a princess or a aueen. The overseers of the 



THE PRINCESS TN DISGUISE. 187 

poor talk over her case, and pronounce her a pauper. 
They know not that God has burnished a coronet for her 
wrinkled brow, and that there is a throne on which at 
last she will rest from earthly weariness. Glory veiled ! 
Affluence hidden ! Eternal raptures hushed up ! Maj- 
esty in a mask ! A princess in disguise ! 

I will tell you of a grander disguise. Hear it. The 
favorite of a great house one day looked out of his pal- 
ace window and saw men carrying very heavy burdens, 
and some of them lying at the gate full of sores, and 
some hobbling on crutches, and heard others bewailing 
their woe; and he said: "I will put on poor-man's 
clothes, and I will go clown among those destitute ones, 
and I will be one of them, and I will see what I can do 
in the way of sympathy and help." The day was set. 
The lords of the land came to see him off. All who 
could sing gathered together to give him a parting song, 
which shook the hills and woke up the shepherds. The 
first few nights of his life he slept with the ostlers, and 
drovers, and camel-drivers, for no one knew there was a 
King in town. He strolled into the house where learned 
men sat, and amazed them, that one without a doctor's 
gown should know more about the law than the doctors. 
He fished with the fishermen. He smote with his own 
hammer in the carpenter's shop. He ate raw corn out 
of the field. He fried his own fish on the banks of Gen- 
essaret. He slept out of doors, because the mountain- 
eers would not invite him into their cabin. He was 
howled at by crazy people amid the tombs. He was 
splashed by the surf of the sea. A pilgrim without a 
pillow. A sick man without any medicament. A 
mourner without any sympathetic bosom into which he 
could pour his tears. Through all that land he passed 
in disguise. Occasionally his Divine royalty would flash 



188 * THE PEINCESS IN DISGUISE. 

out, as in the Genessaret storm ; as in the red wine at 
the wedding ; as when he freed the shackled demoniacs 
of Gaddera ; as when he swung a whole school of fish 
into the net of the discouraged boatmen ; as when he 
throbbed life into the wasted arm of the paralytic ; but, 
still, for the most part he passed in disguise. No one 
saw a king's jewel in his sandal. No one saw a king's 
robe in his plain coat. They knew not that that shelter- 
less man owned all the mansions in which the hierarchs 
of heaven have their habitation. They knew not that he 
who cried : " I thirst ! " poured the Euphrates from his 
own chalice. They knew not that that hungered man 
owned all the olive gardens and all the harvests that 
shook their gold on the hills of Palestine. They knew 
not that the worlds that lighted up the Eastern night 
were only the glittering belt with which he clasped the 
robes of his glory. They knew not that the ocean lay 
in the palm of his hand, like a dew-drop in the vase of a 
lily. They knew not that all the splendors of the noon- 
day were only the shadow of his throne. They knew 
not that suns, and moons, and stars, and galaxies, march- 
ing on for ages in cohorts of light, as compared with 
Christ's lifetime, were less than the sparkle of a fire-fly 
on a summer's night. Omnipotence sheathed in a hu- 
man form ! Omniscience hidden in a human eye ! Infi- 
nite love concealed in a human heart ! Eternal harmonies 
subdued into a human voice ! Honor cloaked in shame ! ^ 
The crown of universal dominion covered up by a bunch 
of thorns ! The royalty of heaven passing in earthly 
disguise ! 

Again, I learn from this story of the disguised Prin- 
cess of Tirzah, how people put masks on, and how the 
Lord tears them off. Oh, it must have been terrible 
when the prophet accosted this woman of Tirzah, and 



THB PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



189 



said: "Come in, thou wife of Jeroboam. You cannot 
cheat me. I know who you are. Come in. "Why 
feignest thou to be the wife of another?" It was right 
for her to seek a cure for her sick son; but it was not 
right that she should try to hoodwink the prophet. It 
was a wicked cheat, and God tore off the mask. Some- 
times we have a right to conceal. There is no need of 
telling everything. A man is a fool who tells everything 
he knows. There is a natural pressure to the lips which 
indicates that sometimes we ought to be silent. But for 
all double dealing, and Jesuitry, and moral shuffling^ 
and forgery, and sham, God has nothing but exposure 
and anathema. He will show up the trap. He will rid- 
dle the empiricism. He will assault the ambuscade. He 
will rip up the cheat. I wish I could point out to you 
some of the charlatans and tricksters that hoodwink, and 
cajole, and cozen, and hoax society. There is a vast 
multitude of people over-credulous. They are ready to 
be deceived. They believe in ghosts; they saw one of 
them once. They heard strange and unaccountable 
sounds in a vacant dwelling. Passing a graveyard at 
night they saw something in white approach and cross 
the road. In a neighbor's house they heard something 
that portended a death in the family. They think it is 
very disastrous to count the carriages at a funeral. They 
think it is a certain sign of evil if a bat flies into a room 
on a summer night, or a salt-cellar upsets, or a cricket 
~* chirps on the hearth, or if they see the moon over the 
wrong shoulder. They would not think of beginning 
any enterprise on Friday, or of going back to the house 
to .get anything after they had once started on a journey. 
Now, such people are all ready to be duped. Ignorance 
comes along in the disguise of medical science, and these 
fere the kind of people that this disguised ignorance first 



190 



THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



entraps. Oh, the tragedy of the pill-box and the mix:- 
feures that have never been described. It is high time 
that somebody lifted up his voice against the wholesale 
butchery of the race. There are so many men who have 
found the essence of a weed which was plucked in some 
strange place in the moonshine, that can cure all kinds ot 
disease, and they cover up the board fences with the ad- 
vertisements of the "elixirs," and the "pain killers," 
and the "Indian mixtures," and the supernatural bitters^ 
and the nostrums which are emptying cradles, and filling 
insane asylums, and choking the cemetery with more 
bones than it can swallow 1 And so ears are deafened, 
and eyes are blinded, and nervous systems are destroyed 
by "electrical salves," and "instantaneous ointments," 
and "irresistible cataplasms," and"unfailing disinfect- 
ants," and the wonders of therapeutics, and the prodigies 
of pharmacy, and the marvels of chirurgery, enough to 
stun, electrify, poultice, scarify and kill the whole race 
Oh, stand off from such impositions. When ignorance 
comes to you in the form of medical science — when it 
comes to you in that or in any other disguise, have noth- 
ing to do with it. Men prosper by these things, and 
build up vast fortunes ; but after awhile, if they have 
been practicing on the weaknesses of men and women, 
the time will come when their prosperity will cease, and 
their dapple greys will be halted by the angel of the 
Lord that stood before the ass with drawn swor«L In 
the day of the Lord, there will be a light which will 
shine through every subterfuge, and thinner than the 
disguise of the woman of Tirzah will be every earthly 
imposition, and with a voice louder than that with which 
the prophet accosted that woman, saying: "Come in, 
thou wife of Jeroboam," will he consign to midnight 
darkness, and doom, and death all two-faced men, and 



THE PRINCESS IN DISGUISE. 



19 



jockies, and knaves, and defrauders, and hnposters, ant . 
charlatans. 

Again, I learn, from this story of the disguised prii. 
cess of Tirzah, how exact, and minute, and precise ate 
the Providences of God. The prophet told that woma^ 
that the moment 6he entered the gate of the city, the 
child would die. She comes up to the gate of the city, 
the child's pulses instantly stop. With what wonderful 
precision that Providence acted. But it was no more 
certainly true in her life than it is true in your life and 
mine. Sickness conies, death occurs, the nation is born, 
despotisms are overthrown at the appointed time. God 
drives the universe with a stiff rein. Events do not go 
slipshod. Things do not merely happen 60. "With God 
there are no disappointments, no surprises, no accidents. 
The designs of God are never caught in deshabille. In 
all the Book of God's Providence there is not one "if." 
I am far from being a fatalist, but I would be wretched 
indeed if I did not suppose that God arranges everything 
that pertains to me and mine; and as when that woman 
entered the gate of Tirzah and her son died, the provi- 
dence was minutely arranged, just so minutely and pre- 
cisely are all the affairs of our life arranged. You may 
ask me a hundred questions I cannot answer about this 
theory, nor can any man answer them; but I shall be- 
lieve until the day of my death that no pang ever seized 
me but God decides when it shall come and when it shall 
go, and that I am over-arched by unerring care, and that 
though the heavens may fall, and the earth may burn, 
and the judgment may thunder, and eternity may roll, 
if I am God's child, not so much as a hair shall fall from 
my head, or a shadow drop on my path, or a sorrow 
transfix my heart, but to the very last particular it shall 
be under my Father's arrangement. He bottles our 



192 



THIS PRINCESS 1H DISGUISE. 



tears. He catches our sighs. And to the orphan he will 
be a father, and to the widow he will be a husband, and 
to the ontcast he will be a home, and to the poorest 
wretch that to-day crawls ont of the ditch of his abom- 
inations, crying for mercy, he will be an all-pardoning 
Redeemer. The rocks will turn grey with age, the for- 
ests will be unmoored in the hurricane, the sun will shut 
its fiery eyelid, the stars will drop like blasted figs, the 
sea will heave its last groan and lash itself in expiring 
agony, the continents will drop like anchors in the deep, 
the world will wrap itself in sheet of flame and leap on 
the funeral pyre of the judgment day; but God's love 
will never die. It shall kindle its suns after all other 
lights have gone out It will be a billowing sea after all 
other oceans have wept themselves away. It will warm 
itself by the blaze of a consuming world. It will sing 
while the archangel's trumpet peals and the air is filled 
with the crash of breaking sepulchers and the rush of 
the wings of the rising dead. 



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